Welcome to the 12th year of this weekly column that's updated fifty-two times a year, on Sunday nights or Monday mornings, depending on how well the booze holds out. If you've got any news, clues or rumors to share from around the Bay, or the world, feel free to send them to ☛

MARCH 7, 2010

FIRST WE TAKE MANHATTAN, THEN WE TAKE BERLIN

Direct from the catwalks of Paris and the cutting edge of Fashion we have an example of what women are expected to wear this Spring. Somehow, we doubt this look will take hold on the Island. Notwithstanding the clear advantages to castaway location devices.

CH, CH, CH, CHANGES

Long time lifers will note the new look that our coding hamsters have been slaving over for the past few months under the sharp whip of Chad down in the Basement.

We hope the new look is easier for all of you to read, especially those of who have approached a certain time of life and the necessity of bifocals. We also noted that there are a range of browsers and OSes coming to town, and for those needing amplification or reduction, we have the text resizer in the sidebar, where the broken links have been patched up and given new images.

The floating radio has been tamed into a corner and does possess useable buttons to silence or advance the tunes in the selection of about 60 songs. We'll see if we can slip some indie stuff past our Music Director, who has the unfortunate penchant of clicking his bootheels together while making a Sieg Heil guesture every time he passes the flower-bedecked portrait of Paul McCartney that hangs in his office.

Herr Direktor does not believe that anyone knows how to write good songs today. Not since 1975.

Green Day?

"Dreck!"

Pearl Jam?

"Dreck!"

Even, like, Wilco?

"Dreck!"

Foo Fighters?

"Vaht?"

Death Cab for Cutie, Franz Ferdinand, Goo Goo Dolls, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Raconteurs, Bloc Party, Gomez, Offspring, String Cheese Incident, Johnny Lang, Susan Tedeschi, Modest Mouse, Incubus, Ani Di Franco, Linkin Park . . .

"Alles Dreck. Unmenschen!"

I suppose you don't like Iggy Pop either.

"Der ist schtoopid. Schtoopid! Schtoopid! Schtoopid!"

He might agree with that himself. How did you ever get this job anyway?

"Der Wille zur Macht. Und my sister-in-law is VP for Ticketmaster. Ja! So ist das."

Well, when you can't afford to pay anybody, you must make do with what you get for volunteers around here.

The 2009 event reviews are all posted now. Next up we will be looking at the Backpain and Camping sections.

VIDEO OF THE WEEK

If you are like any of us, you too are trying to make sense of what is going on. Wierd things in the supermarket. The stuff some people buy. Plates of shrimp. Missing persons. Not to mention the entire Republican Party and what happened to it.

Here, Miller explains it all in the cult movie "Repo Man". Hint: "The more you drive, the less intelligent you are."

WHAT'S GOING ON

The folks at Autobody on Park Street kindly let us know about a few upcoming events there for the Spring Season. Friday, March 12th the mercurial gallery will host an opening titled "Seeing Is Forgetting",
featuring Brett Amory, Robert Jankowski and Noah Krell.

The exhibition "Seeing is Forgetting," makes direct reference to the 1982 Robert Irwin autobiography/conversation with art critic Laurence Weschler. In particular, the artists in "Seeing is Forgetting," make work that is memorable for its elliptical nature. The images and forms in this exhibition are presented on the canvas, screen and pictorial plane in a manner that suggests that action is either prescient or suspended, having occurred before or after the viewer arrived at the artwork.

Brett Amory's finely tuned paintings hover between abstraction and representation, setting up a conversation about the way in which reality and emotion might be afforded equal opportunity within a painting. Figures emerge and are then subsumed beneath broad, seductive swashes of paint, flailing amongst brush strokes to get them noticed. Appropriately titled "Waiting," the series is devoid of "on-screen" drama but is made all the more urgent as the viewer identifies with the loss of self made palpable when agency is not an option.

Robert Jankowski's beautiful and haunting black and white photographs evoke the work of both Diane Arbus and Dorothea Lange in their intimate strangeness and conversation about American Life. Jankowski uses his immediate family as a frequent source but is able to step back to find that element of universality, be it a quirk or a fundamental expression that somehow connects the viewer to the photograph.

Noah Krell is primarily a performance artist whose work frequently uses time as a specific element. By incorporating entropy into the work through duration, Krell can let a narrative unfold naturally, even though his situations are very often intentionally artificial. It is this contrast between hyper-reality of environment and the supposed normality of him and others as subjects that creates the tension in the work. His vibrant, seductive photographs exist as the relics of each performance and document the very particular placement of each "actor" within the work. As part of the exhibition, Noah Krell will be presenting a new performance work on March 26th in conjunction with an evening of performance art.

This event on the 26th, a Special Evening of Performance Art, will be gated, both for admission at the bargain price of $5, and for age requirements, as nudity, strong language, and "implied violence" will be a part of the evening presentation, which will consist of both set pieces and "durational" works. A durational work lasts the entire course of an evening. Please note: This event is 18 years and over ONLY.

For more information, biographies and images, please contact:
Jacqueline Cooper, Executive Director
Autobody Fine Art
1517 Park Street
Alameda, CA 94501
510.865.2608
www.autobodyfineart.com
jacqueline@autobodyfineart.com

We hear that the Piedmont East Bay Children's Choir will be holding a gala fundraiser here on the Island March 19 at the Officer's Club on the Point. Tickets are $125, available through the PEBCC office -510-547-4441.

For over 25 years, the internationally acclaimed Piedmont East Bay Children’s Choir (PEBCC) has been offering children from throughout San Francisco’s East Bay an outstanding program of choral training and performance. Founded in 1982 with just 22 singers, PEBCC today enrolls over 300 children, ages 5-18, drawn from 76 local schools and 17 area communities, including Oakland, Alameda, Orinda, Berkeley, Lafayette, Walnut Creek, El Cerrito, and a dozen other cities in addition to Piedmont.

The Annual Gala Celebration and Fundraising Auction is an evening of gourmet treats, fine wines, and live choral music - all to raise money for a fantastic cause: kids growing with music. Music will be performed by the Choir’s top performing group, Ancora, plus faculty members, alumni and others. The cuisine will feature gourmet hors d’oeuvres, an international salad bar and wines from Cakebread Cellars, Verite, Green & Red, Rosenblum and more. The auction will feature one-of-a-kind items, elegant gifts, tickets to cultural and sporting events, and enticing vacation getaways.

Silent auction begins at 6:30 followed by entertainment and a live auction at 8:15 PM.

And, we might add, nothing you do for children is ever wasted.

Islandlife just got some scuttlebutt over the wire about a new arts collective in East Oaktown called NIMBY. The NIMBY fellers have taken the Crucible paradigm and expanded that idea to include all physical arts, including performance and computer geek. Micheal Snook is the Founder/Birthman of the space, assisted by Rachel Norman and Dave Pedroli.

They've gotten into a bit of hot water from the Man who does not want artist types moving into the 'Hood and messing up all his fine kickbacks, bribes and blind-eye palm-greasing deals. The OPD has said, as an excuse for the heat, they don't want to be answerable to a bunch of Ofays dancing in the middle of Criptown, but just let one of those blokes fire up a propane jet at 900 PSI and you try and tangle, dude. We suspect the NIMBY folks can fully well handle their own turf on their own terms.

Here's a pic of the Business Manager at work on a project.

Yes, this we like!

On the music scene, we really see no main headliners arriving until April, when Train arrives on the warmer side of the Bay to do the Fox April 10th. Marianne Faithful just completed a two day set at Yoshi's East, while Yoshi's West has been sending us freebies and half-price tix at a suspicious rate, making us wonder how the venue is doing over there. Reports have it that the venue has some really bad spots with execrable acoustics that depend upon the luck of the draw on arrival. Other seats report perfectly fine sound, but this spotty quality is not something to hang your hat on when tickets are conservatively $25, plus parking, plus drinks, plus meal before the show, plus extras. One can expect an even century note per person before the night is over, and a craps shoot for quality tickets in an increasingly chilly City does not cut the mustard. Sorry.

LOVELY RITA, METER MAID!

Its interesting to note how the dailies are all reporting on the new aggressive parking enforcement: "Parking became a hot-button issue in Oakland again last week . . .". It seems the parking issue is something the town just cannot get right, due to all the political shenanigans and budgetary flip-flops. Both of the weeklies and all of the dailies have reported on the extremes of parking enforcement as the local municipalities have given the go-ahead to vigorously pursue the most arcane statutes in an effort to balance the cash-strapped budgets by means of fines.

Its no secret that the once warning-only fixit ticket is now accompanied by an "administrative fee" of $25. It is still codified into the CVC that the ticket can be issued "at officer's disgression", however you all know how that really pans out.

The officers want to keep their jobs, so they keep the money flowing by issuing ever more tickets, sometimes for the most outlandish and questionable of infractions, such as parking with any wheel more than 18 inches from the curb, possessing crooked license plates, or not canting the wheels to the curb on a flat stretch of road.

Nevertheless, one rule remains operant in which the ticket will NOT be issued. You must be one of means and dwelling among the well-to-do. In such cases, you do not get issued the usual nuisance ticket, but a written warning instead.

Recently, the Tribune reported that the City attorney for Oaktown, John Russo, recommended that all tickets issued in the toney Montclair and upper Oakland areas be refunded, "to avoid a class-action lawsuit." (03/03/2010, Kelly Rayburn).

The brough-haha was in response to a memo which a senior parking enforcement supervisor e-mailed as a directive to other supervisors July 24 telling them to issue courtesy notices — not tickets — on cars parked the wrong way or with their tires on the sidewalk in Montclair and North Oakland.

Really, the supervisor was only stating what had been defacto policy for years; treat the well-heeled different from the hoi polloi. The man was simply being honest about the "way of the world". You live in Montclair, you get a pass. You live in the flats, you get fucked. Simple as that.

Embarrassment at this brief display of honesty and Bulworthism, resulting in Parking Director Noel Pinto claiming he remedied the situation within weeks, telling his staff members verbally Aug. 7 that warning notices should be given on all narrow streets for the types of violations in question, not only in the two zones.

Members of the Service Employees International Union unit that represents Oakland employees have disputed that time frame, and it appears a reversal of the July 24 memo was not put in writing until Nov. 12.

City Council members, including Desley Brooks (Eastmont-Seminary), raised questions of fairness at a council meeting Tuesday, asking Lindheim if tickets given outside the two areas would be thrown out.

Lindheim said he and his staff have been investigating why the memo was written in the first place and whether unequal enforcement ever went into practice.

Oh Lindheim, are you really such a child? Preferential treatment for rich folk? Who determine elections based on their dollars? Oh perish the thought!

Truth is, so long as 33% of each and every ticket fine flows back to local coffers with no strictures as to assignment of funds, we will continue to see these outrageous displays over and over again. It is not fair, it is not right, it is not equitable, and the system of balancing the budgets by means of fines needs to be abolished.

LAST FARE OF THE DAY

Its been a cloudy, stormcast week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay.

At Marlene and Andre's household, Javier, Martini and Festus stumped out to the tangle of weeds and ironmongery in the backyard to enjoy a few hours of sunshine with their gauze swaddles and their plaster of paris boots and the air scented with jasmine and freesia for once, instead of sulfadide, meurochrome, denatured alcohol and swabbings, which have been the lot of each of them since the steam accident a few weeks ago put them all into a bandaged funk.

After a brief discussion on the availability of telfa pads (no longer available at Longs, now CVS), the discussion turned to the weather and the upcoming Academ y Awards.

"You notice there is a bird (Up), a fox (Mr. Fox), a house carried by balloons (Up, again), blue people with tails, and mountain banshees (which look like blue jays with teeth, Avatar), but not one hamster in the lot of them. Its unfair." This comment came from Festus.

"Didn't they have a rat in the hat in the story about the restaurant cooks . . ." Martini began.

"Rats are rodents, pure and simple," Festus said. "But an Hamster is not a rat by any stretch of the imagination. We possess dignity and are beloved by the Peruvians. I beg to differ."

The jasmine bloomed wildly as each contemplated the difference between rattus rattus and hamsters. Sun dappled the battered lawn, with its sparse grass interpolated between islands of chokeweed, dandylions, and clover.

Over at the Old Same Place Dawn has been handling a smooth-talking marketing specialist who wants to revamp the bar into a trendy nightspot with strobe lights and disco-style musak spun by professional DJ's

"I could turn you into the Diamond Queen of Lincoln Street, ma'am", the huckster said to Dawn. "You could knock that tiki bar down the way into the ashpit."

Padraic was not so sure of that proposition. The tiki bar pulled off all of the sexual dreck and filth that otherwise would have dropped into his place. Of this process, he was very much glad.

The huckster was impassioned. "That Dreck and filth carries filthy lucer, dollars in the pocket my man! Haul them in and let them spend! Its a bonanza waiting for you!"

At the end of the day, despite the clear attraction of more dollars, both Padraic and Dawn nixed the idea. They liked the bar the way it was with its tawdry hangings of Ireland's 39, its pickles in a jar at the end of the way, its torn bar seats, its solid redwood bartop, and its neon signs in the windows. For at the end of the day, the same old folks totter in to the same old place bar at the end of the same old street, expecting to find the same old place.

"You need to know," Padraic said to the marketing specialist. "If you are going to buck against the trend, defend the common folk, and fight the Power, you need to do it smart. You, my friend, are not very smart. Your thinking outside the box is not boxing very clever, for you have boxed yourself into a corner, and so we have no use for you and your boxed-in ways. And so good day."

Right then the long howl of the throughpassing train ululated across the strife-ridden waters of the estuary as the locomotive wound its way through the dark and shuttered storefronts of the Jack London waterfront, heading off to parts unknown.

It's a dark night in a City that knows how to keep its secrets, but in the Old Same Place Bar sits one bartender still pondering Life's Persistent Questions.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

FEBRUARY 28, 2010

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

After that last dockwalloper we had, we expected yet another bout of snowy misery for parts northeast of here and we hear that the reports came true. Minnesota put off Spring just as black ice began to form on the lakes and the industrial Northeast found itself socked in with the Mother of All Snow Storms forcing closures and widespread outages even in hardy Boston.

After the storm (we expect another in a few days) people poked out of their burrows to examine the damage. Trees got knocked down on St. Charles and other places in the Gold Coast on the Island, but fortunately nobody happened to be standing underneath them. James Joyce's Michael Fury (The Dead) would have done well to pay heed.

Despite the weather, the crocuses are croaking, the freesias are freely freeing, and the tulips are kissing the sky to their own Jimi Hendrix rhythms, and the pogonip is pogoing across the Bay, indicating that not even Congress can stop what is about to happen.

LIKE THE WEATHER

As mentioned, we just had a fine dockwalloper come in to drench the saturated sponges of our lives. We've got a few days respite before another storm comes in Tuesday, and again on the weekend.

Drought over now?

WHATS THE BUZZ? TELL ME WHAT'S A HAPPENIN'

SLATE is celebrating spring with an exhibition of contemporary botanical photography by four Bay Area artists Friday, March 5th, 6-9 PM. The show celebrates the exquisite designs that nature offers us, grappling with art's capacity to represent it while also reflecting on the fleeting nature of perfection and beauty, an age-old metaphor for our own mortality. At once beautiful and dark, the exhibition also makes clear what is at stake when man's drive for technological, urban, and economic development threatens nature's delicate balance.

SLATE is located in the suddenly thriving Temescal district on 4770 Telegraph Avenue in Oaktown.

Richard Thompson sold out both of his shows at the GAMH, and we hear that the Certified Guitar Player rocked out both nights. But you can still get tix for Allen Toussaint, one of America's greatest musical treasures. The New Orleans native has been making hit records for over 40 years. He'll be gracing the Hall March 3rd.

Another old war-horse who has produced more Grammy-winning disks than anybody else, working with Ornette Coleman, Elvis Costello, Allen Toussaint, T-Bone Burnett, Don

Byron, Solomon Burke, Brad Mehldau, Madonna, and Ani DiFranco, Joe Henry will follow up on March 5th.

The day after that show, former Soul Coughing frontman Mike Doughty will do an acoustic set at Slims that should be rather exciting. Doughty has shown some serious legs in his music after setting out on his own with an armload of intelligently wrought lyrics and catchy tunes to go with them.

For a more raucous time at Slims, catch The Black Rebel Motorcycle Club on the 9th and 10th. Three chords, solid rhythms, loud and fast -- it don't get better than that.

Considerably softer and moodier, the production of Matthew Sweet's musical Girlfriend, directed by Les Waters, opens with previews at the Berkeley Rep May 9th and following.

Who should be sliding quietly into Yoshi's East midweek but our very own Brechtian darling, Marianne Faithful for two dates 3/3 and 3/4. Doug Pettibone will provide guitar accompaniment for the shy chanteuse.

Of course you do know that if you want to see and hear Dave Matthews with his band at the Shoreline on August 25th you better hustle as tickets just went on sale.

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Will those Bible-thumpers never learn. After the AUSD bent over backwards to accommodate protesters over the new anti-bullying curriculum, the radical right-wingers still want to sue the District any-who, claiming violations of the Brown Act. As if the beleaguered District did not already have its hands full with the suits over the tax measures H and D which were to levy taxes based on square footage to raise funds to keep the schools running. Those measures got held up in court by local businessmen who objected to the manner in which the tax was to be calculated.

Golf is rather a silly activity, which hardly can be termed a sport in any real sense; it is far more of a pastime in which participants rarely break a sweat than an athletic contest. Nevertheless, it is an activity which has a long history, an elaborate set of rituals and a well-beloved set of traditions that are cherished by those aficionados who certainly should not be prevented from living out their favorite game. That's the thing about golf -- one does not merely play it; one lives it to the max.

Our own golf course, the Mif Albright, has attracted national attention for all the commotion it has caused. At first, about two years ago, the course was endangered in that it earned too much money by way of greens fees, which apparently is against some kind of traditional golf statute. The resolution was, at that time, to privatize the municipally-owned and operated course.

Then the Recession hit and many folks found better things to do with their money -- if they still had any -- than spending it on wacking little balls around a manicured lawn. The course started to lose money, which of course is not a good thing at all for a City in financial trouble. So the solution was to privatize the course.

It's all so simple. The two solutions to all the problems in the world come down to Free Market and Downsizing. The Free Market always will Downsize because that's good for the Bottom Line.

You don't need Maynard Keynes to figure out the basis for all of this. Somebody around here wants that course for their very own and they plan to chop the number of holes and a number of other things besides. Remove a few holes to save maintenance costs? Hell no! Where those holes used to be will make quite a fine real estate development for a condo project.

Oh. Now I see.

Except the People (remember "We the People"?) do not want to downsize the Albright Course. They do not want to privatize. They want to play golf as they always have and they have a better solution. If the issue is costs and keeping the beloved course, just assign a nonprofit to handle the job. There, all problems resolved. In fact the Island Junior Golf Club is poised right now to leap in like proverbial Superman to save the day.

This actually makes a lot of sense, as this resolution unloads Silly Hall with what they say is an albatross around their necks, it keeps the ownership and operation local, and it keeps the course essentially unchanged when there is no pressing need for it to change. The Silly Council will consider the issue this Tuesday and it will be very very interesting to see how this comes out. The mayor's seat is up for grabs next election is it not?

Those fellows working on train tracks on the other side of the Fruitvale bridge are not preparing to reactivate the bridge for train passage any time soon. No, they are fixing up a spur line so as to shunt freight traffic during the Caltrans retrofitting of the Nimitz Fifth Avenue overcrossing. This work requires Union Pacific to abandon the current track, the "Hanlon Lead", which runs along the Embarcadero. The net effect of this retrofitting work and the rerouting to the Glasscock spur means that very long freights will be passing on this track which runs along Fruitvale Avenue to Lancaster Street and onto Glasscock Avenue to 23rd Street at the foot of the Park Street bridge.

REMEMBER O THOU MAN

It's been a stormy week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. One of the few words we have handed down from the First Peoples of the Bay Area is their word for fog -- Pogonip. They knew all about it. For when that great wall comes in, that means the seasons are about to change in their long-held inscrutable ways.

On the porch of Marlene and Andre's household, Snuffles Johnson pulls his ragged blanket closer around his shoulders, glad enough that he had the porch overhang to shield him from the rain. With the Great Recession in full fury across the land, the members of the little household there all knew about loss and suffering for each had seen his and her share of troubles in this time. So they all let the tramp stay there as a sort of adornment of sorts, for kindness is a strange brooch in this all hating world, as King Richard once said.

These days Pedro Almeida needed to go out the Golden Gate each morning before dawn, piloting by the instruments through the thick wrap. Ever since the Costco Busan had spoiled the Bay with tons of fuel oil, the herring catch had vanished, so all the privateers had to make their way out beyond the Gate to the Pacific shelf for whatever still swam or scuttled for the taking.

The life of a private fisherman is a hard one by any standard and Pedro hoped that with a little put by the kids would not have to work like this in all kinds of weather, counting on luck and a St. Christopher around his neck to come home each day. Still, they say the man called Jesus was a sailor who spent a long time watching from his lonely wooden tower. Until only drowning men could see him. Or was that how the song went? Pedro went about his business on the boat, El Borracho Perdido with the black lab named Tugboat paddling after him. And so the two of them puttered off into the fog.

Over at the Island Offices the Editor has been trying to get Javier back on the art gallery beat. Javier, stooping about in gauze bandages and mildly doped on Vicodin merely groaned. Javier, Martini and Festus (the messenger hamster) had all been severely scalded during a disastrous incident at the House last week.

"Come one now, Javier!" said the Editor. "Its not really Spring yet, so there's no real danger and nobody will recognize you and besides," he added. "You might work the sympathy angle for some juicy info!"

Festus snickered in what seemed to be a sardonic and disbelieving manner.

"As you, dear rodent," soon as the ice melts its up to the Great White North for you!"

The Editor still had not given up his pipedream of brokering a sister city status with the Mayor of Lake Wobegon and his methodology of communication scarcely made the enterprise any more realistic. He did know that Spring is Nature's most dangerous Season, however the rime was still on the shore for now. As for the dangers of Spring, especially for boys like Javier, more on that next week after the snows have had a chance to soften.

"Listen, I can hardly put you on the ambulance chasing / house fire beat looking like that, now can I?" The Editor gestured at Javier's swaddles.

The eyes in the swaddle rolled back and another groan emitted.

The trapdoor popped open at that moment and a terrible reek arose from the chasm revealed amid ghostly vapors. The tousled head of Chad, erstwhile mad scientist and HTML coder popped up. "Hey boss! Got some great effects I wanna show ya!"

Chad was waving a vial of some greasy yellowish liquid that sloshed sluggishly inside the container. A copyboy rushing past caused him to clasp the vial to his chest and shout at the retreating back of the copyboy, "Idiot! Be careful!"

"What the hell is that in your hands?" asked the Editor.

"Oh this? Do we have a blast-proof bunker lined with reinforced concrete around here?"

"Now Chad . . .", began the Editor.

Meanwhile over at the Old Same Place Bar, Suzie was locking up for the night. It being still mid-season, and the Great Recession, there were few tourists tonight, making for a thin wallet of tips and a narrow margin for the bar. And come Monday, tomorrow, the rent was due all around. Suzie put her head down on her crossed arms on the table. Dawn sat there running over the receipts and Padraic came out to say he was closing up the kitchen. "Want anything?" he said.

"Toasted, all in," said Dawn. "And you me dear?" she addressed Suzie, who just shook her head.

"Well its how a girl keeps her figure," Dawn commented. "But do let us know if you be wantin' anything."

She propped her chin on her fists, an oval face perched on a column of knuckles like a museum exhibit. Earlier a man had been posting For Sale notes on the corkboard among the tax services and the rental notices. Turned out he was selling everything he had and moving to Houston in Texas. He was not from Houston or even from Texas -- he originally came from Minot, North Dakota, but Texas is where all the money is right now, or so it seemed to the man. And nobody in their right mind ever returned to North Dakota, let alone a place as godforsaken as Minot.

He fell into talking with a man who hailed from Caldwell, Nebraska and a lady from Nis, which is in present day Croatia.

"Actually I am from a town west of Nis, but that town does not exist anymore," the lady said. The last time she had visited back there all the streets and houses had been bombed out and no one lived there any more. She was interested in the man going to Texas because she was thinking about investing in a property development there. She had come a long way from a Croatian waif to someone of means in America.

The man from Caldwell was interested in buying the Fender guitar and amp being sold. It was a tube amp and the guitar was made in the USA. The man selling his stuff had been an investment banker in Babylon before the Crash. Now he had nothing except his toys, which meant little to him anymore. He sold the guitar and amp for five hundred dollars and seemed glad to get it.

As for the man from Caldwell, he and his family had been paid by the government to leave their town and never come back. The local mining concern had tunneled right underneath Main Street such that now all the houses and streets were falling into the Pit. It was a kind of ironic Town Going to Hell situation, the man said. So he and the townspeople took the money, which was not much, and left. He thinks they put a fence around the town so nobody could get in, but he couldn't be sure about that.

The two of them, the man from Caldwell and the man from Minot left together to finalize their deal. Later on the man from Caldwell returned with a troubled look and ordered a Fat Tire and a shot. The trouble was not the guitar or the amp, both in hardly played pristine condition despite being well over thirty years old. No, that was not the trouble.

"His flat," said the man from Caldwell, "Is one of those chic places down by the water. You know: outdoor hottub, gated parking garage, elevators, landscaping. The whole bit. But his place looked like a tornado had hit. Stuff everywhere on the floor, like the aftermath of some disaster. It was . . .", he hesitated, searching for words. "It was like the wreckage of an entire life. I paid him the money, took the stuff and left. Now I need a drink."

That had been hours ago, but Suzie still dwelled upon these things. Its a dark night in a City that knows how to keep its secrets, but in the Old Same Place Bar sits one bartender still pondering Life's Persistent Questions.

Padraic brought in Dawn's sandwich then went back to turn out the lights there.

The long howl of the throughpassing train ululated across the storied waters of the estuary from Oaktown to the Island as the engine wended its way from the brightly lit gantries of the Port through the dark and shuttered storefronts of the Jack London Waterfront, heading off to parts unknown.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

FEBRUARY 21, 2010

IN THE GREEN FUSE DRIVES THE FLOWER

This week we return to Javier's garden to see what might be going on down there. Looks like something is happening. While the guys up around Bear Lake are all making bets on when the old Monte Carlo dragged out onto the ice breaks through and Washington DC digs out from its own "Snowmageddon" and ski parties are still trundling up to Tahoe for downhill and crosscountry activities, strange and wonderful things are happening beneath the snowcrust my friends. As our favorite blues singer says, "Like a boulder rolling slow or the seed beneath the snow, it has a way of slow surprises all its own."

AND THE DEVIL LAUGHED WITH DELIGHT

Was disappointed during a visit to a local shoeshop to find the only pair of dress boots for sale there were made in China. Had a look and tried them on anyway. The shoes were made in China of what is called in the trade "patch leather", which is the lowest quality of leather stitched from discarded pieces on the shop floor. Also this particular style, according to the salesman, normally left about two inches of empty space in front of the forward toes, making a size 10 look like a size 12. The salesman also informed me that he knew of no current shoemaker who now made variable widths, which we used to understand as sizes E, double E, or EEE (among other things) and that all shoes now came from China. He said the problem is that people want to buy things at the best possible price.

Needless to say, we departed without buying the gunboats that the fellow wanted to install on our feet. But then we tend to walk by those $18 "deals" at Kragen's for the 184 piece Chinese toolset, knowing that the potmetal used to make that junk would do disservice to a child melting them down for use as tin soldiers as even then they would break before a single use.

Apropo this topic we have this little gem from Chad and performed by The Capitol Steps.

Here is an expression you can use the next time you are in Chinatown: "Zhong-guó huò-wù (or zhì pin) goushi (or wúyì in front of delicate company)". That's Mandarin for "Chinese manufactured goods are dogshit."

PSA ALERT

There's a new smell in town and its called Initiative Signature Gathering. The following items are recent additions to the menu in front of the Post Office and the grocery: revisions to the Redistricting Initiative already passed a couple elections ago, the move to create a Constitutional Congress so as to revamp the state constitution, an initiative to demand that both parties allow independents to vote during Primaries, and, of course, a new edition of the SunCal plan. Expect more on the way.

Keep your heads up folks, as the signature gatherers are NOT being forthcoming about these items, and appear to be largely uninformed as to the really meaning of any of the issues. The initiatives might be good, might be bad, but you need to check your facts before signing anything.

Redistricting is already in progress with the committee members being solicited for resumes. This thing is in the works already, so investigate just who is wanting to shunt the course and why.

HEY BROTHER, CAN YOU SPARE A DIME?

It's been a cloudy, overcast week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. Over in Babylon, they seem to have all gone under cover with the weather threatening as it is, and little of note has happened there by rumor and report. The artists are all fleeing in caravans and wagons from the high price of rent and Yoshi's West has been offering tickets at $0 to next to nothing just to fill the hall with warm bodies.

Sad to say "I told you so," but you really should not have evicted those 5,000 musicians from SOMA during your pang of pure greed a few years ago. Last we heard, that warehouse is still vacant.

A one bedroom is really worth about $800 in this area and that is the truth, for if you can't get by on that something is seriously wrong with you. All else is overcharge and usury.

The issue this week is shorter than usual due to the consequences of an unfortunate accident in the Offices. During the nightly dinner production at Marlene and Andre's, Marlene had to to los necessitas and so put Javier in charge of the stove for the time being. Javier, seeing the splatter of the red sauce and the rising of the noodle water coming to boil clapped lids on both pots without thinking to turn down the heat. He cranked down those lids quite nice and tight.

Unfortunately for all concerned, the pots employed were defective steam pressure kettles with faulty seals. Heck, in hard times, one gets what one can to get the job done. Marlene had never intended for the lids to be actually used. As Marlene returned from the toilet, both kettles blew their seals with tremendous BOOM!, sending Wickiwup and Bonkers to the safety of the far corners of the place while jetting a scalding flood of sauce and water onto Javier and Martini who -- naturally enough -- howled in pain.

Martini was hustled into the cold shower while Javier was pitched headfirst into the Bay down on the Strand where the sand and salt water did a lot to his severe third degree burns.

Even Festus, the messenger hamster who had been bench pressing piles of nutshells all winter in preparation for his spring foray up to Lake Woebegon did not escape unscathed for a plop of bubbling water landed square on the rodent's back, causing the most extreme agony and loss of fur. Festus was dropped unceremoniously into the sink under a cascade of cold water. "Haaaaay!"

A lot of chaos, more than usually random chaos, ensued that night and the next as the victims were bound up, salved and gauzed into immobility. Mobility is a bad thing for anybody who has gotten burned, as those who have experienced will attest. You do not want to move. Needs being dire, when supplies were required, Jose and Andre simply looked for open windows and opportunities to crawl in and scavange medicine cabinets of unwitting donors. Heck, this is America pre-healthcare reform. People who want medicine pay for it. People who need medicine, steal it. Its all the morality the Republican Party wants.

As for mobility, Festus, weighing about a pound at the most, was easy to handle. The others, being full-sized human beings, were more difficult to address.

Hydrogel, cloth tape, Sulfadiazide, gauze pads, illicit painkillers, and saline solution cluttered the place like Tolkein's Houses of the Healing. Except it was Marlene and Andre's household, where things always manage to tilt just enough left of center to keep balance. If Tolkein had live long enough, his hobbits would have sported mohawks, tattoos and piercings and Iggy Pop would have carried the Ring.

You cannot imagine Iggy as an Elf and certainly not as a Dwarve. Iggy Pop as hobbit. Because we love Iggy.

In any case, with a couple of staffers out of commission, this week's issue needed to rest a bit. There is a wonderful documentary featuring Kenneth Branagh speaking lines quoted from Joseph Goebbels that is more scary than any flying skull monster movie with globs and aliens ever made, but we will have to get into that a bit later.

A long delayed dockwalloper finally set in to drench the place and prepare for crossing the Sierra to make the Easterners a bit more miserable. This one will not be as severe as "Snowmageddon" but you all may recall that little Philly, PA rodent did observe his shadow when hauled out of his burrow a while ago.

Festus had sent a message to Phil, saying "Stay in your goddamn hole, ya moron!" but the message was not heeded.

Down at the Old Same Place Bar the regulars huddled there along the rail or at the tables, each according to their wont. Everyone was sitting there, with the smells of the heavy rain coming through the sometimes opened door and drips on the stones and a bit of chill, but also a sense of something about to happen. In the darkness of the window-well, Dawn's potted freesia had developed buds all arrayed along a mini-lightpost of purest green, the yellow lamps barely peaking out of there. Yes, something great was about to happen and they all sat there patiently, waiting for what was surely to come. Not disaster nor earthquake nor political winds, but something far more reassuring and far more natural.

Just then, each sitting over his or her hot toddy or beer, nodding with sleepiness after the long weekend, the long wail of the throughpassing train came ululating across the commotion of the estuary water changing tides from the port of Oaktown as its wound its way past the dripping and dank shuttered storefronts of the Jack London Waterfront as the engine headed off to parts unknown.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

FEBRUARY 14, 2010

THE TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

Headline photo this week comes from the patch of sod out by the Old Fence. Seems the seasons have plans to do their annual thing this year, right on time. For those of you still digging out from the misplaced Minnesotta blizzard that decided to head south and east, hang in their. Slow surprises are getting ready beneath the snow.

RADICAL BOTANICAL OPENS AT SLATE

The talented and intelligent Danielle Fox lets us know that Slate Art and Design gallery will be hosting a timely opening in keeping with the seasonal adjustments anticipated with an art exhibition titled: Radical Botanical: Contemporary Botanical Photography.

SLATE is celebrating spring with an exhibition of contemporary botanical photography by four Bay Area artists. The show celebrates the exquisite designs that nature offers us, grappling with art’s capacity to represent it, while also reflecting on the fleeting nature of perfection and beauty, an age-old metaphor for our own mortality. At once beautiful and dark, the exhibition also makes clear what is at stake when man’s drive for technological, urban, and economic development threatens nature’s delicate balance.

WHERE: SLATE art & design gallery 4770 Telegraph Ave, Temescal, Oakland CA 94610 (510) 652-4085 www.slateartanddesign.com

WHEN: Opening Friday March 5, 6–9pm, free and open to the public. Show runs through Saturday April 3. Regular gallery open hours are Thur–Sat 12–5pm.

WHO: Artists: Hiroko To (Oakland & Japan), Hagit Cohen (Berkeley), Michele Hofherr (Piedmont), and Chi Fang (San Francisco). Curated by gallery director Danielle Fox.

Hiroko To’s work is probably the most formal of the four artists shown. Her interest is largely about surface, composition, and color, and what happens when real forms are translated to an artistic medium. While all four photographers play with the contrast between passages that are in and out of focus, it is the space between these that comes forward in Hiroko’s work, creating unusual and subtle textures that read more like an abstract painting than a photograph.

Michele Hofherr’s work is as often about the negative space that surrounds the subject, as the subject itself. Much as a sculptor can shape something as elusive as space and air by introducing a physical shape into it, so Michele articulates the edge of the flower as it meets the dark–and somehow solid–void around it. The black backgrounds also refer to the dark spaces holding brightly lit flowers in Dutch still-life painting of the 17th century, a time when paintings of flowers were honored as reminders of the fragile nature of our own lives.

Chi Fang’s work, by contrast, is all about delicacy and light, articulating how miraculously exquisite and fresh nature’s forms can be. Yet the fact that two of them were photographed at the conservatory of flowers, reminds us of the unfortunate need to conserve nature and its forms.

Hagit Cohen hand-makes her quotidian flower chains before floating them in East Bay creeks, giving her photographs a ritualistic and performative aspect. This practice brings home the fragility of nature’s delicate balance in the face of human intervention. And this, of course, rather than the flowers themselves, is the real subject of Hagit’s work.

WE'RE NEVER GONNA SURVIVE UNLESS WE GET A LITTLE CRAZY

From contacts in Der Vaterland, we have news of the annual Karnival festival in Cologne, Germany.

This period of cutting loose is shared across national borders -- we have our own Mardi Gras -- but in Germany, the normally staid Burger lets it all hang out, especially for the parade. Germans will tell you there are two kinds of people that live in the land of bier und Wurst -- Northern Prussians and Southern Bavarians -- before correcting themselves with the addition "Ach ja. Und die Kölnische. Die sind etwas . . . anders." Oh yeah, the people of Cologne. They are a bit different.

Here the current pope shakes hands with the infamous holocaust-denier Bishop Williamson.

The economic crisis due to the credit default-swap debacle is world-wide. Here we see a taxpayer taking a hit of bad credit from the mouth of a bank.

More economic woes. Angela Merkel and the Finance Minister throw lifelines to banks and Opel.

Obama's troubles are depicted fairly graphically in several floats in which he is generally seen as trying to rescue a bad situation. Here he is propping up the Statue of Liberty.

This is pretty much the American situation as seen by Europeans. They are not overly optimistic.

HOME, HOME IS WHERE I WANNA BE

All the local papers are reporting on the bath SunCal took at the polls with 85% of the turnout trashing the misguided initiative. SunCal is already devising a new initiative but the letters to the editor and much of City Hall's recent actions indicate that the going is likely to get tougher for this gang which does not seem to have much of a clue as to how things operate here. The additional news is that this special election, featuring just one item, cost $300,000 to the City, and this bit of trivia really has folks steamed.

It is inexplicable why SunCal tried to do an endrun around the already decided upon plan to develop the Point, and then did it in such an hamhanded way, but folks are not smiling anymore about the issue. In an effort to forestall yet another bit of foolishness, City Hall has sent a default notice to SunCal, giving it just 30 days to come up with a plan that fits within Measure A's limits. Measure A was pushed through in the 70's to shunt aside a massive development project for the East End that would have added some 70,000 living spaces there -- a bit of an extreme, one has to admit as the total population of the Island is just that much to begin with.

Giving more signs that SunCal wants all of the pie with toppings or none of it, reps have challenged the default notice requiring the new plan meet Measure A, effectively stating they want to build up and they want to build high and they want to do it their way or not at all.

Jeez, just try and be good neighbors, people.

The election scheduled for June 8 will also likely hold measures to raise money via parcel taxes to keep all of the schools open. The District may close Encinal High if the measures do not pass.

PSA - KALIFORNIA, UEBER ALLES

Its no secret that Officer O'Madhauen has always performed traffic enforcement here on the Island with idiosyncratic zeal, however the situation here and in other local municipalities has worsened severely as the Great Recession drags on and local budgets cry out for more lucre. The word is out to the Departments in all cities: Officers, go get the money.

We have stories of truely absurd tickets being issued right and left for things like crooked license plates and red light running when the victim clearly was entering on the yellow. We even have a report of someone who was issued a ticket for STOPPING at the yellow, which does create a sort of can't win no matter what situation. Another person was issued a parking ticket in the Fruitvale district for exceeding the one hour time limit -- trouble was, the man had been there only five minutes on a return visit from earlier in the day. In a truly devious move, Oakland is leaving broken parking meters out there while still enforcing the Expired message, claiming the driver is still liable even if the meter is inoperable.

With everyone hurting during this time, not just the municipalities, it hardly makes sense to put the screws to unfortunate citizens, but that is just what the different city Departments are doing. And in preparation for this heightened revenue-gathering, all of the fines have been increased and fixit tickets now must be paid a "handling fee".

As a consequence, many of us are parking the car to use mass transit, walk or bike to get around so as to reduce "exposure." Clearly, if revenue tickets will be written no matter what you do or not do in a car, best thing is just avoid driving entirely for now. Heck, its good for your health and better for the planet.

KQED PRESS RELEASE

Friday's wire brought news from KQED, the local public radio station affiliated with NPR. Friday the Board of Directors of Northern California Public Broadcasting, KQED's parent company, announced the selection of a new president and chief executive officer.

"Please join us in welcoming back John L. Boland, who served in several executive roles at KQED for more than a decade before joining the Public Broadcasting Service as its very first chief content officer. Boland succeeds Jeff Clarke, who is retiring after nearly 45 years in public media and broadcast journalism. Clarke's leadership and vision over the past eight years will be missed as he joins his family in Texas."

PHEDRA AT ACT

Neoclassical theatre arose in continental Europe in response to Louis XIV's taste in theatre, which had up to his time suffered a sad decline in quality. Shakespeare was no longer performed, but instead the public was catered to with course comedies that featured exaggerated codpieces as main props, juggling, dancing bears and circus acts. Henri II had banned the Church morality plays -- due probably to the violent religious warfare that had been plagueing France. His marriage to one of the Medicis opened the door for theatre, which entered France via the farcical Commédia dell'Arte.

The acts were generally adult-themed and most of the actors supplemented their income by way of thievery, prostitution, fixed gambling and drugs. The Sun King, of course, wished for finer sorts of entertainment, hence the birth of neo-classicism dramas that sought to purge everything unsavory from the stage and render all action by way of verse so as to present things appropriate for the Court and Palace. As offending a King like Looey could have potentially fatal consequences, these dramas typically banned all physical action of every kind and pulled storylines from the safest material possible -- the ancient Greek myths and legends.

For a time, gone were the swordfights, the duels, the intemperate language of Macbeth and the unruly passions of Faustus. No more tragedies of fallen kings, not for Louis, who was actively engaged in putting all of the regional aristocracy under his firm control by means of Versailles, which became a sort of compulsory Summer Camp for nobles.

At Versailles, keeping those nobles in check involved entertainments, so dramas were encouraged, and that nasty bit of ugly and debased dance known as "ballet" got a good scrubbing and proper wardrobe. Music got a shot in the arm as did perspective painting, but as for drama, our main man and subject of endless Monty Python ridicule, Cardinal Richelieu, was appointed official approver (and censor) of the stage.

The unfortunate result for theatre was the production of plays which are substantially unplayable in the modern age. At least if one stays true to the original aesthetic. Into this period of staid, dessicated drama waltzed dear Racine, whose personal life was everything this form of theatre was not. He drank, he womanized, he probably murdered at least one mistress and he made the Mozart depicted by Tom Hanks look like a choirboy. Yep, he was one heck of a badboy.

But rules are rules and the King would have decorum on the stage. Hence, we have Phedra, a sort of Oedipus in minor key. Racine's resolution to the dreadfully dull genre limits was to inject costume and stage sets while exhalting virtually every aspect that could be presented into gargantuan forms. One does not just weep in Racine, one's heart tears open and the heavens rend themselves into gigantic bits, cliffs fall into the sea (discretely off stage) and chariots plunge into the foam with sweeping passions.

Of the three giants of the time, including Moliere and Pierre Corneille, Racine was ironically the best at toeing the official line of the government, while the other two are most known for being successful at breaking the rules. And being better for it.

Why ACT would choose to put on Phedre is a bit of a mystery. It may be that in searching to pad its older subscriber base with thisheavily Jansenist, portentious and bottom-heavy play ACT wants to gather in all the folks who see going to the theatre as a serious obligation freighted with tremendous seriousness about serious things. As one reviewer commented "Classical theater is tough on many levels. It's tough on actors, who have to allude and emote using words that are often much more heady and complicated than they're used to; and it's tough on audiences, who need to bone up on their mythology and history and get in the right frame of mind to experience a piece of theater that is often more of a museum piece." (sfist.com)

True enough for the critics who don't want to be seen as poo-pooing some drama of serious significance. Racine is still performed in Europe, but seldom in the US, largely because Racine's sensibility is uniquely European. But still, we really do not need to have a local reperatory company employing its resources to revive what cannot succeed as living breathing theatre even if translated from French well, acted well, staged well, and packaged well. As Seana McKenna astutely asked during early rehearsals for the Canadian production, "I'm curious to know where we are in this play. Our characters pray to Greek gods, but we're wearing 17th-century French costumes while speaking the text in a modern translation underscored with music by an experimental American composer."

The one thing allowed and exhalted by intention of the author is grand passion and this one thing is supposed to carry the audience through the unbroken hour and forty-five minutes to the end.

Unfortunately, without that element, the play is interminably dull.

Neo-classicism ended in France ironically as playwrights sought to liven things up with contemporary political commentary just as France moved toward a strictly conservative period which put the kibosh pretty much on all theatre during a particularly joyless era that would end quite abruptly with the invention of a new and more humane execution device by Dr. Guillotine.

Predictably, the stodgy English then took it up briefly as a consequence of their own religious squabbles, boring Londoners for nearly half a century when it yielded in the 1800's to Realism.

BLUE VALENTINES

After the most recent cloudburst here the skies remained heavy and dark, like the roiling clouds above Mordor. The fogs have come creeping in to indicate the change of seasons. We expect another bust of bad weather further to the East, but not as bad as what has gone before.

A dockwalloper is slated to pound in here about the weekend.

The recent days have featured the signatory tipoff that the seasons are about to change in that the tule fogs have hung about the Bay cutting visibility to about the length of a car wreck.

The dreaded V-day arrived on Sunday, and its observance was marked by each according to their wonts. Mr. and Mrs. Almeida went off to Kincaids for the steak and lobster dinner there after shipping off the kids to the Abodanza family for popcorn, pajama parties and Willy Wonka's peculiar cruelties. The lights in the house went dark rather quickly and it did not appear that Pedro Almeida would be setting sail on President's Day this year to go fishing. Some other kind of fishing was going on at the Almeida household.

The Editor holed up in his glassed cubicle with the blinds drawn and three days worth of Weight Watcher meals in the fridge along with a stack of DVD's from Blockbuster, including Jessica Lynch's "Surveillance", and "Repo Man". The Editor is a classicist.

Javier got intensely drunk and remained that way for a solid three day bender.

Denby secured himself with his Tacoma D-9 in his apartment to run through the Tom Waits canon, especially his "Blue Valentines" which began to drive his cat to howl and his upstairs neighbor thoroughly mad until he shifted into Richard Shindell's Halloween song about the breakup from hell. A fifth of Jack Daniels helped this process along immensely. His upstairs neighbor, a person who actually knows something about music, put on a record of salsa music.

Suan pulled a double shift at the Crazy Horse, for V-Day is primetime for a gentlemen's establishment, for all the expectations engendered and seldom fulfilled. Except precisely at such an venue as the Crazy Horse, where all needs are fulfilled, regardless. So long as you got the money. Suan did the Pole and even the private room lapdance thing, for it was expected that Mr. Howitzer would be boosting the rent once again, right on clockwork, in complete disregard of the current Great Recession. Her return to the house that night was one of one tuckered worker straight from the front lines of gainful employment, feeling tired, sore, filthy and worn out. Suan, the girl who served up all the fantasies and services of Eros at the Crazy Horse got no Valentine that night except for a card from Tipitina, who appreciated her contribution to the house rent. It was a gray cardboard card cut from a shirt stiffener with a crayon heart and the words, "We love U" and the signatures of all the house folks in the household maintained by Marlene and Andre. She propped up that card at the head of her sofa and fell immediately asleep. For sweet sleep is the great gift to those who labor.

After Andre's band, No Future in Real Estate, finished their practice that ended with a rousing and exhilerating version of "Lets Lynch the Landlord!" Andre and Marlene went to bed and made violent love that forced the pigeons in the attic and the raccoons hibernating under the ruined porch to flee in all directions. Sometime around midnight, a little bit afterwards, Marlene looked up at the ceiling and said, "I think something happened."

Martini, Pahrump, Jose, and Occasional Quentin all went down to the Strand with a box of wine got with the proceeds of Martini's temp job blowing leaves. Martini, Pahrump and Jose had fortified themselves with pint bottles of Old Crow previously, as 5 liters of wine clearly will not go far enough to sate the appetites of four hearty Californians. A car of valleygirls disgorged its contents who giggled and cooed on the beach before scampering back to the safety of lights and rum bars.

Jose commented, "They aint gonna have nothing to do with the likes of us."

"Old Indian saying. No money, no honey." Pahrump said. This was something he had said before. Its universal truth was undeniable.

Martini, who had a girl in the War, remained silent. His situation was a little different from the others. An offensive was on and his girl, Amanda, had signed up with the Marines when such a thing seemed a sensible act to do. Now an offensive was on and all communications shut down from that sector. In classic military pattern, Martini's position was that of hurry up and wait. For whatever news may come until the offensive was over with whatever results this action may bring. And so that was Martini's V-Day.

Further down along the Strand, near Crab Cove and the little lagoon there Rolph, who had no personal association with V-day because of his upbringing in East Germany before the Wall came down, was walking Bonkers and Wickiwup for their constitutionals after dinner when he came across a man sitting in a wheelchair looking out across the water. Rolph, as bouncer and gofer at the Centerfolds Club in Babylon was beat after a long shift working the same kind of clientel Suan had serviced in various forms.

It surprised him that anyone would be there at that hour and so of course he broke into the man's reverie with an inquiry.

"Are you alright?"

The man sat there with a knapsack in his lap, heavy with contents by the looks of it.

"I am fine." The man said. But the look of him said otherwise. The light of life had gone from his eyes.

Rolph, no stranger to extremes, sat down on the far corner of the bench there. "My name is Rolf," he said. "I come from far away."

"I am Adam," said the figure in the wheelchair. "I went to school at Polytech in the City. I have lived here my entire life."

"I see. That must be a grand thing. I do not have a hometown myself exactly."

"I used to run and jump. Just like you. Then I went to the Wars and so now you see me as I am. I wasn't always like this."

"As for running and jumping I think I am getting too old for that," Rolf said. "Heya!" And he threw a stick far out so that Wickiwup and Bonkers both ran after it, running and jumping. Bonkers returned, offering his offering first to the man there, who grasped the stick to throw it out again so that Wickiwup could bring it back for yet more repetition.

Repetitions are characteristic of the postmodern condition, let us dutifully note. Everything is postmodernism now, you know. Bonkers woofed. Bonkers had not a goddamn care for any sort of ism. A cereal box contained all the truth Bonkers needed. But Bonkers was Bonkers.

Rolf and the stranger in the wheelchair threw the stick alternatively out to the Strand where either Bonkers or Wickiwup would gamefully fetch it back. Eventually the heavy knapsack travelled from the stranger's lap to the side of his wheelchair. But there is nothing like good healthy dogs to restore the heart in a man's chest.

"How is it you have no hometown? Where is your family? Where did you grow up?" Asked the man.

"My family is all gone," said Rolph. "As for growing up, if there ever was such a thing, I passed that time in the cities of man. And one city is pretty much like another. We escaped the Iron Curtain, only to find that there was no difference. Then everyone died along the way."

"If I could simply go away, I would do so. This place is become hell." The man said. "And everyplace is just the same." He paused. "Sorry to hear about your people. It must be terrible."

The two spent a few moments throwing the stick.

"Es ist einfach so." said Rolf. "Nothing to do about it. Bad things happen and you must go on. No choice in the matter. Ja?"

"Ja, Ja, Ja." said the man. "And all the Jews march off to the gas chambers and nothing changes. Everything just gets worse."

"About the Jews, that was before I was born and I would have done something against all that. Certainly not much changes but we have no more Auschwitz. And I myself am barely holding on here." Rolf's exhaustion flooded through his body.

"What can you do? You are nothing. Nothing at all. And me. Nothing at all. We are meaningless and stupid."

"That is true." Rolf said sadly. "We are nothing. And we have no choice. Except to live. Not for ourselves, you see, because that is clearly stupid. For other people."

"What do you mean?" said the man.

Choosing his words carefully, Rolf said, "Is there anyone, anyone at all who might say, 'I did not see him today. Wonder where he has gone.'"

The man looked at him. "You know don't you. You know, you bastard."

"Give me the sack," said Rolf.

"You fucker." said Adam. But the light had returned to the man's eyes.

"I have been here before," said Rolf. "Please give me the sack. For my mother's sake. She killed herself on the Spee Bridge. In front of me. Give me the sack."

"I see," said Adam. And he handed the sack to Rolf who marched stiff-legged to the pond. The sack weighed about three and one half pounds but he did not open it before he hurled it far out into the middle of the water and returned to the bench.

"I used to be a whole man," sobbed Adam. "I could run and jump and do anything. Before the Wars."

"I know," said Rolf. "Me too. Me too. Then everything changed. Because of a little explosion. No reason to add even more complexity." Bonkers and Wickiwup returned to nestle at their feet. "It will be good to see the sun rise tomorrow," said Rolf. "Good dog!" And he patted their heads.

"Yes," said Adam. "The sun most certainly will rise again. Whether we want it to or not."

From far across the way, the long ululation of the throughpassing train wavered across the Island to that solitary spot as the locomotive wound its way from the Port of Oaktown through the dark and shuttered Jack London Waterfront to parts unknown.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

FEBRUARY 7, 2010

NO MEANS NO -- EXCEPT SOMETIMES

The piece about the popes a few weeks ago brought in some commentary. Here is photo of a product devised by one successful entrepreneur. The product is called the "I said No Condom", and seems to be selling rather well.

WEEKLY VIDEO

This week we present a talk by Naomi Wolf , author of "The End of America: Letter of Warning To A Young Patriot" given October 11, 2007 at Kane Hall on the University of Washington campus.

MEASURE B DOWN IN FLAMES

Once again Staff volunteered at the polls for an election, this one the Special Election instigated by SunCal's attempt to flagrantly hijack plans for the Point.

Nearly 85 percent of them said "no" Tuesday to what SunCal Companies suggested as the future of the former base.

SunCal proposed to build about 4,500 new housing units and 3,182,000 square feet of commercial space, as well as a new ferry terminal, library and school at the site. The developer's plan also called for 150 acres of open space but also limited its own dollar amount to amenities like the proposed parkland.

Alameda residents overwhelmingly rejected the proposal, which was on the ballot Tuesday as Measure B.

Results show that 11,947 voters rejected the measure. Yes votes totaled 2,120, according to the Alameda County Registrar of Voters.

Cost of the election will be about a cool one half a million dollars to the City.

Next up, June 8 Primary elections.

AVATAR - THE MOVIE

Crossing the country one year, an affair that used to happen with distressing regularity by land and road, we happened upon a performance of an outdoor play outside of Bismarck, ND. The play concerned the preparations of Col. Armstrong Custer, who departed on his ill-fated expedition from that city.

The middle of the country is not like you and me -- it is far more uninformed, and sometimes willfully so. That play extolled Custer's merits, turning old "Yellowhair" into an archetypal hero of great courage and integrity. Not all the persuasion in the world could convince anyone there that most of the world justly regards Custer as a murderous madman and dishonest thug who was only shunted from horrific deeds by sheer force of numbers. Instead, the people there insisted they were planning to take their work on the road in a matter of months to none other than San Francisco, and they absolutely refused to believe that they would be laughed off of the stage within days of opening.

Which is pretty much what did happen.

We had Custer and that play much on our minds during our jaunt during the Superbowl to watch the James Cameron movie, Avatar, at the Island Multiplex, where its current popularity is ensuring dual screenings in the recently refurbished theatre.

This is the first time staff have entered the controversial venue, the restoration of which was hotly contested for quite a while, and which has resulted in a basically old-time environment with period ornate architecture dating from the 20's. Its interior fits in with the Island olde tyme atmosphere, but basically, all that blacks out once the film rolls, so not much more needs to be said about it other than we noticed numerous technical glitches on which others have commented. The house lights inexplicably came up midway, the screen was periodically as jumpy as the old-fashioned film reels and so on.

As for Avatar, we would give the 2.5 hour film a thumbs up as a solidly engaging movie which completes all it sets out to do and more. That said, the movie does not try all that hard or aim that high intellectually.

It is true its basically a "Dances with Wolves" with high-tech and seven-foot aliens standing in for the Indians. Old storyline: bad guys get their butts kicked in the shoot-out. As a sci-fi vehicle, its WOW factor does not disappoint, and there is a refreshing sense of wonder that was absent in the final 2 Matrix movies.

That would be all to report except for a couple disturbing comments circulating around the film. One concerns the supposed "anti-military" feel of the movie, and the other is a bit more complex requiring a fairly lengthy answer, and which basically boils down to the overheard comment, "I don't think there really are such evil people in large numbers", essentially referring to the hired mercenary army that is a deadringer for the Blackhawk folks in Iraq, but also a carbon copy of previous entities.

Stephen Lang puts in a fairly solid performance of an ex-Marine who has moved into the private sector as a "security consultant", which pretty much equals the experience of the Blackhawk folks. All of the security personnel seem to stem from the same background, including our main man, played by Sam Worthington. None of the armed forces are presented in any way as current members of the US armed forces, and great pains are taken to illustrate this. The chain of command is limited to the field commander and there it stops, save for a minor role in their employer, represented by Giovanni Ribisi (Saving Pvt Ryan).

The US Marines are generally treated with respect, and at least two characters portray ex-Marines with integrity and honor, so the charge that the movie impugns the Marines in any way is entirely bogus.

And, let us point out, Lang does not portray even a very good commander, because a good commander would never have committed the lives of personnel past the point when casualties started to accrue. Lang's Colonel Miles Quaritch needs to be seen as a bad leader responding emotionally, instead of intelligently.

The second comment requires some attention, for as in any space-opera/space western you are going to have exaggerated presentations of good guys versus bad guys. The problem we have here is that the situation of a people sitting on something desirable only to have a stronger power seize that thing destructively has historically involved just the sort of folks portrayed in the movie Avatar.

One would like to think, we are beyond all that. We have matured ourselves and we no longer do that sort of thing. But history indicates that belief is simply not true. It does keep happening. The great hope is that films like this and District 9 will continue to highlight these situations which unfortunately have become all too typical towards the end of making them atypical.

Towards this end, we are including a chapter from our own in-house Work in Progress. This chapter is a conflation of two real events which took place at Gunther's Island and at Clearlake in the 1850's and is drawn from firsthand reports. It is strong stuff -- some of the lines are pulled verbatim from eyewitness accounts, and it is not something to read any time around dinner. No detail has been invented. Yep, it all happened.

CHAPTER 58 - THE CLEARLAKE MASSACRE

Tiburcio rode up to the place on the Peralta estate where he and Isabelle had settled in a shack beside Temescal Creek and encountered the shock of his life upon coming in the door. Isabelle ran to greet him, exclaiming there was someone there to see him - which was not such a shock in itself. The shock was in seeing his old friend Runakason laid out on a cot, emaciated, bloody and near death.

Tiburcio went to him and in broken whispers Runakason told such a tale as to make the blood of any man who would distinguish himself by the name to run cold as the ice water that skirts the snowfields of the Glacial Divide.

Like many of the former neophytes in the Mission system, he had secured some land after secularization. And just like almost all of these people, he had no way to effectively run the land productively. Their education had usually been religious, barring the exception of the especially driving individual such as Estanislao, and their work had been physical labor. Then came the whites in large numbers and almost all of the native Americans had lost their land to squatters and thieves. One day, Runakason came out to find a prarie schooner parked in the yard and a fellow with a piece of paper which claimed, or so the fellow said, that the property on which Runakason stood had been sold by trustee of the Mission. To him, the holder of the paper. There was nothing for Runakason to do but pack up and leave. This sort of thing happened frequently as the Mission valuables and lands were looted by the secular so-called protectors, leaving the native Americans with nothing after all their years of trouble and service. They were left to shift as best as they could and try to form villages again.

So Runakason crossed over the water to find the old village only to discover that only the two people -- Eneeka and Hayuusa Joe -- were left scrabbling for survival among the ruins. There was no more village and that's when they headed north to where they had heard some people were living.

That's how Runakason had fallen in with the Clearlake Pomo only a few miles north. Those people had lived there for generations, and had managed to get along with the old Californio, Salvador Vallejo, who had set up a small ranch there south of the lake, but two whites had come, one by the name of Andrew Kelsey, the other named Charles Stone. Andrew Kelsey was the brother to the same Sam Kelsey who had been part of Los Osos a few years previously.

As for Stone, Stone was a good name for this man, for that is what the man had in place of a heart and as for a soul, he never had possessed any such article and would have sold it cheap to the Devil if ever he did. The men set up a big cattle ranch and, finding few to man the business, purchased several Pomo as slaves. Finding that insufficient, they went to the villages that ringed all around the lake and seized men to come work for the wage of four cups of wheat per week, and any that refused were tied by the wrists to an oak and flogged solidly until the blood ran down and the last breath ran out. The man would be cut down then and thrown into a ditch that was by the counting house.

The slaves were made to build a grand adobe house, the first of its kind up there, with two floors and many rooms. While this was going on, Stone felt the urges of a man with large appetites and so when he happened to hear of or see a particular woman he would send for her to use to satisfy his desires. One day Stone called to Tsiaiaruka Ka Ruk to send his woman, Da-Pi-Tauno. The man refused, of course, as any man of the name would. Stone sent some men to grab Tsiaiaruka Ka Ruk and hang him by the wrists from the oak next to the adobe. There Stone flogged the man all day and took a rest in the afternoon for some food and a little nap, leaving the man to hang there for hours. He came back and to flog him a couple hours more but by then the man hung there without breathing.

Stone left him hanging there and took the maiden Silent Creek into his place for a time. She was from the eastern shore of Clearlake. One day he came out angry that she had not cooked the meal to his liking and was talking about going back to the eastern shore which he did not like, so he took his pistol and shot her in front of the house. Shot her three or four times and she lay there dying while the people stood around not able to do anything. "Take that you damn Indian, take that!" he said.

After that he would pick and choose any woman he wished, whether married or not, and use them for a little while. If another man had her and refused to send her up to the house, Stone treated him the same way he had treated Tsiaiaruka Ka Ruk.

He was a bad man that Stone, but Kelsey was not much better. He took several men, including QraNas, Bodum, and Juluh, tied them together with thick ropes and drove them like cattle to the Sierra mountains, where he had them dig for gold, where Kelsey got some out of their efforts and brought it back with great pride, but the diggers were called only that and earned nothing for their pains.

The two of them captured people from villages around Clearlake and some they bought as slaves from merchants in that trade. Although Black slavery was forbidden, these two helped keep that institution alive on a technicality for these people were not Black. Runakason knew nothing of technicalities or what, but he did know all of this was not right.

The slaves were put to work finishing the building of that immense adobe house two stories high with winding stairs and a big stone fireplace. They hauled timber, sawed planks, lifted rock and many other things and for all of this each was given nothing, not even food. For food they had to depend on the boiled wheat that was paid to the cattleherdsmen and those men were paid only four cups per week for themselves and their families.

The winter of '49 was hard with snow and ice such that well over twenty men and women died of starvation and the conditions. Chamis, and Vjute, and Saweeka died in this time. Runakason had settled with Eneeka and Hayuusa Joe with a few Pomo in the village called Badonnapoti on Wakkaley Island, called by gringos "Rattlesnake Island". This island lay in the northern part of Clearlake, but a horse could ride through the shallows and get there easily. Kelsey and Stone kept their ranch on the south end, so these people had little to do with the ranch as it was known as a bad place.

One day, as Runakason was out fishing when Ge-We-Lih and MaLaq-Qe-Tou came round saying the people on the ranch had killed the two white men and were now living well on the cattle there. Runakason went to the ranch and found Kelsey's body on the side of the creek where they had left him. He heard from Ragnal all about what had happened. Shuk and Xasis, seeing the people starving, determined to hunt down some beef, kill it and so feed the people, who were forbidden by the whites to hunt or fish. They planned to do this at night so they would not get caught and furthermore they would use ranch horses to hunt and carry back the meat.

Things did not go well as planned for on the night they went for the meat, it started raining and turned the ground all around into a mud slick. While Xasis was lassoing a good sized beeve, the horse Shuk was riding slipped and fell, throwing its rider. Xasis had to let go of the beeve and try to use his riata to recapture the horse, for the horse Shuk had taken belonged to Stone and that horse was Stone's personal favorite. All the other horses lived outside as the Californios had always done with them, but these two came from the barn where the white men doted on them and fed them far better than the people.

Xasis got his horse back to the barn, but he could not catch Stone's horse which joined the wild herd. As for the meat, it all stampeded away when this all started.

There then was a big conference where Xasis and Shuk told the people there what had happened. You must imagine what they were all thinking, for things were bad enough. If anyone admitted what had happened that man would be flogged to death with his wrists tied to a tree branch. If anyone did not admit what happened there would be flogging, death, and trouble for everybody. Someone suggested paying Stone for the loss of his horse, but everybody knew he would take the money - then Stone would kill the man who took it to him.

The committee decided there was nothing they could do, for no matter what they did, things would be very bad for everybody and somebody would die over this whole fiasco of trying to get something to eat. So it was that Shuk and Xasis decided that if anyone would die, it would be Kelsey and Stone. They set out then for the house at daylight. The conference then conferred, seeing that nothing could be done to persuade Shuk and Xasis one way or another, but they did make one request of the house-help there, all of them boys and girls who had been or were being abused by both Kelsey and Stone, and these boys and girls removed all of the guns and knives from the house early that morning.

QraNas and Batus went with the other two, and as these people were not especially fierce and never warlike, when the whites were confronted, there was to be a great fight. In fact, nothing would have happened that morning except for Juluh who had come up with the others just to watch. They all stood around the big kettle used for boiling the wheat until Stone came out and there were Xasis and Shuk having a conversation with the man about food and so on until Juluh lost his temper, seeing that these men did not want to kill anybody, nothwithstanding that this man would soon kill them both for taking the horse.

Juluh grabbed the bow and arrows from Xasis and shot the very surprised Stone in the stomach who swung an iron pot on MaLaq-Qe-Tou, breaking the man's arm and there was a great fight then but Stone managed to fight his way back into the house and lock the door.

So there they all were, knowing that no weapons lay in the house, but not being able to enter. Batus went away with MaLaq-Qe-Tou to bind up his arm away from there. Kelsey came to the door not knowing what had happened, for he looked puzzled at the blood on the doorstep. The white men had commanded such a large house to be built that apparently Stone had gone in to some other place without ever meeting Kelsey or telling him what had happened. As it turned out later, he had gone upstairs to die in his bed.

Kelsey saw the people advancing on him and tried to cajole them, but these people were starving, had just committed violence on his partner and they meant business. QraNas got between him and the door, so Kelsey took off running. There was a running fight from the house to the creek where JuLuh shot him in the back with an arrow, but this failed to stop Kelsey who jumped in and swam to the other shore where Jim Seifis and his wife stood waiting among others. Kelsey begged for his life then, using what words we do not know for he had nothing to offer except the memory of the infrequent act of kindness to this or that person. Jim Seifis said, "Do you remember how you shot down my boy from your horse for the sake of a cup of wheat?" He turned then to his wife, DaPiTauo, and said, "This man killed our son. What do you think?" DaPiTauo took a spear and rammed it then full force into Kelsey's chest so that the heart stopped and the man died by the running creek. They left him there until Runakason found him, partially eaten by coyotes.

Runakason returned to the island and told them all what had happened. Some went to see for themselves and found these things to be true. Everybody on the ranch was quite happy for now they had enough to eat for everybody, but more than a few people felt anxious about what was to happen next for the story quickly traveled to all the villages about Clearlake. Many of the people left the ranch and came to the island village, for they wanted no part of murder, not even of the likes of Stone and Kelsey. Some of the ranch people had lookouts posted on Emmerson Hill and in other places. Runakason conferred with the people on the island and they determined that although they had done nothing wrong and would take no part of this affair, they would send a party to greet the whites when they came so as to explain their innocence and all about the slavery and the impossible conditions. For Stone and Kelsey had set a regional curfew over the entire area beyond the borders of their ranch and would punish any violators from any village with the usual flogging. They had their slaves build high walls around the two biggest villages on the east and west side to help with this.

Bodom and KraoLah had a more personal and pragmatic approach as they found out later, for the two went down to the river and dug out a cave there, which they stocked with provisions before covering it over with reeds and laurel so that it looked like a thicket instead of a hiding place.

The inevitable day came when the lookouts gave notice that the soldiers were coming up the river in many boats and there were armed volunteers among them. When the soldiers got to the ranch, they found it entirely empty of life. All the people had fled into the hills except for Bodom and KraoLah hiding by the river.

The soldiers then got into their boats and rowed up along the west shore. When they landed on the island and the closer shore, the village sent out its little group of emissaries including Runakason, Ga-We-Lih and Mule to parley with the soldiers. Runakason recognized Nathanial Lyon as the young Lieutenant as Ga-We-Lih raised his hands in token surrender and began to speak. For answer, indeed, before the man had finished speaking, the soldiers opened fire hitting Ga-we-lih, the man next to him named Mule, and Runakason, whom they winged in the shoulder. Mule fell to the ground, shot in the chest twice and in the head and so he died right away. The others ran into the water and hid in the tules, and the water soon turned red all around from the wounds of those who had been hit. Others ran back to the village, but the unmistakable boom of cannonfire soon shook the air. The US Army was using cannon against women and children and defenseless men who were only trying desperately to surrender.

Soldiers then stepped forward with bayonets. Runakason slid into the water after the soldiers had passed and there watched what happened and Ragnal was there also a little ways off, but they dared not say a word to one another.

Screams filled the air and the sound of cannon and gunfire ceased. The screaming continued. Through the reeds, Runakason watched as a soldier stabbed Hinke Neppe in the side with his bayonet and then again in the chest. When she fell down he stabbed her again. Just beyond him another soldier stabbed EneeKah, a young woman, who was holding her baby, named Mech, and as she fell, the soldier speared the wailing Mech through the back and went on running with the impaled child just like that. A splash startled Runakason and he though he had been discovered and was about to die, but it was the body of a woman thrown into the water by civilian volunteers who stood on the banks as three other woman stood out up to their waists pleading for mercy. He couldn't see who the woman was, for she floated face down, almost near enough to touch in a cloud of red and brown water. The volunteers shouldered their rifles and shot all three woman down with many bullets.

Other women and some men among them ran into the water and swam out into the lake. If they landed on the near shore, the soldiers there shot them down or stabbed them to death with bayonets. Most of these got away however, for they drifted south to thickets there. One woman, named Ah-See-Nah, running between the center roasting pit and the main hall, was brought down by a volunteer with an ax. He pitched it into her shoulder and stopped her running, then grabbing her hair to throw her down, he drove the ax into the top of her head as she struggled to arise. He then smote the hatchet into her face, three times so that blood and brain spattered all about. White chips of her skull flew out to island on pools of blood and viscous grey and yellow matter on the ground until her flailing arms went still. He then ran off to sink his ax into another woman. Ah-See-Nah had been a woman who always sought to broker the peace among squabbling families, for such is the need on a close place like an island, but she was dead now.

Another soldier came running up with a dead baby speared on his bayonet and he flung the dead child out into the lake. For a long time the killing went on, until the men wore themselves out chasing the people for sport, the soldiers being ordered back into lines while the volunteers continued to hunt down old women and children and stab them to death. Soon, of the village of 400 people there, nothing but soldiers and armed volunteers and a few children inexplicably saved - perhaps by a few volunteers who had sickened of the whole business - remained alive on the island. Everywhere the air stank of death and the water all along the shore was polluted.

The last thing Runakason saw before closing his eyes and keeping them shut while wishing for death was the worst. Worse than all he had just described. Bidameh, a girl of about thirteen of whom Runakason was a bit fond was thrown down on the bank there when a soldier caught her running for the water. The man then unhooked his bayonet from his rifle while standing over her before plunging the knife into her chest. He worked the knife in his fist along her chest for a long six inches, opening her up. Runakason could see the brilliant white of her sternum, almost as one might see a bright orchid amid a nest of red roses arranged by an artist, as the man pulled it free and then cut loose her still beating heart which he held only for a moment before tossing that into the lake, to kill and kill again, leaving the young girl there to stare forever wide eyed at the improbable and open universe framed delicately by buckeye branches twirling their yellow seedpods in a moderate breeze.

Before night fell, the armed forces marched off and the survivors crept back to shiver through the hell-wrought night, although not from cold. To the south they could see fires and by daybreak the smoke of burning villages along the Russian River rose as black pillars. One man told of how the volunteers had siezed a man walking along the path and tied him to a tree. This man was named James Tatou, because he had learned some French from a frigate that had come by there years ago. The volunteers then gathered deadwood about Jim's feet, poured pitch upon it and then set it ablaze. Where the people had once set carefully tended fires to roast acorns and let the pinon nuts fall, these whites were setting fires to kill. And so they burned the man alive.

When Runakason crawled out of the water finally, with Ragnal they found Ga-We-Lih still alive, for he had only been shot in the shoulder but had played dead so they would not finish the job on him. Ragnal was just a boy then, but he helped get Ga-We-Lih back to what remained of the village.

After a while Hayuusa Joe showed up with some of the others who had escaped by swimming over to the shore.

It took them days to gather the bodies together and then they could not treat them properly according to custom, there were so many, so they buried them all together. Runakason's wound got infected and he began to have fevers accompanied by horrible dreams. Again and again he saw the soldier tear the heart out of a still living human girl.

Now, he was in Contra Costa, having gotten there god knows how, grabbing the arm of Tiburcio his eyes big with horror.

"How can these people be? They are savages!"

With that, his old friend lay back on his cot and there he died.

SOME PEOPLE SAY GOD TAKES CARE OF OLD FOLKS AND FOOLS

It's been a stormy week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. The Special Election came and went pretty much as everyone expected and the rains performed their usual dances to sodden the Southlands and send more misery East. That old Pennsylvania groundhog came out to see his shadow and then scamper on back in side for another three to four weeks of winter. For now we have a few more showers forcast for the upcoming week, which means no good for the rest of you out in the Heartlands. Wouldn't bet on that Monte Carlo falling through the lake ice just yet.

Javier skipped out on covering First Fridays and the Oakland Art Murmur on rumors that the lovely Leslie of San Leandro was out looking for him in advance of that annual debacle of a holiday known as Valentine's Day. Instead of going up to Trestle Glen, he hid out with a bucket of chicken wings and a case of beer in his apartment to watch an old road-movie starring Gene Hackman and Al Pacino called Scarecrow.

Leslie found some striking Italian with suave good looks so Javier is off the hook for now.

In any case, the sky boils with Michelangelo clouds, muscular with gods and sungold each day, while in other parts of the country George Winston plays etudes across the sifting snow crystals that sweep over the hummocky drifts.

Over at Marlene and Andre's household the place is packed to the gills with humanity, as the weather enforces all who supposedly live there to actually sleep there physically, for there is no other place to go. Jose forgot to go fetch his load of food from the monthly CFS distribution at the foodbank, so now they are all digging into the freezer for last year's production of fava bean chili. Times are tough and in such times, fava beans are the staple of the survivors. It's Winter and the Great Recession is still in full swing. Everyone is out of work and there is no money for anything. Out back, they've started the crops all around the ironmongery left by Mr. Howitzer but it will be a while before the greens fill out. Sprigs of adolescent bean plants stick up between the garlic shoots promising greater things in a few months.

Night arrives like a tired man returning home to hang up his raincoat by the door, scattering a few drops here and there before turning out the lights. Around the little cottage the swaddled bulks shift and snore in their sleeping bags. Occasional Quentin reposes again under the coffee table while Mancini, Xavier, and Pahrump occupy the floor with Bonkers and Johnny Cash. Suan has the couch again. The hallway bunks are all filled with Marsha, Tipitina, Alexis and Piedro. Jose has the closet and of course, Andre and Marlene use the one bed with Wickiwup.

Martini, who used to work at the NUMMI automobile factory in Fremont, mentions that he got some work this weekend blowing leaves.

That's good, said Xavier. Then everyone is quiet for a while.

Do you think these hard times will ever end, asked Martini.

No, said Pahrump. Get used to it.

Okay, said Martini.

From far across the way the long wail of the throughpassing train ululated across the waters of the estuary as the engine wended its way past the dark and shuttered storefronts of Jack London waterfront, heading from the Port of Oaktown to parts unknown.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

JANUARY 31, 2010

CRY, THE BELOVED COUNTRY

This week's somber headline photo is the cover of last week's Der Spiegel, the rough equivalent in Germany to Time/Newsweek. The headline translates roughly to "An Entire Nation Dies".

Long time Islandlifers know that we read the news from around the world in five languages so you don't have to. Our precis of world news was last week.

O SHENANDOAH

A couple weeks ago Garrison Keillor brought his roadshow into Babylon's Opera House across the water, but kindly allowed a couple locals to perform there, including Marinite and Bluesbreaker Evin Bishop and our own Islandgirl, Frederika von Stade. The lovely Frederika performed a little song about our Dear Island, with just a bit of tongue in cheek at the time and some enterprising Islandlifer has posted the entire performance (with Chanticleer doing backup vox) on youtube. Heavens, we shall soon get such a head from all the attention!

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Practically the entire world knows that we are holding a special election this Tuesday, an election which features but a single item, and if you do not know what that issue is, you might as well go home to bed right now. Measure B is the SunCal initiative, of course, a rather bitterly contested issue for all of its merits and admittedly bad faith work on the part of SunCal, who didn't help things much by botching the entire process from the gathering of signatures to the miswriting of many parts of the initiative and the misdirection about just what the plan was all about, altering the plan over which hundreds of people had negotiated over the course of fifteen years since the Navy left the old base at the Point.

For the last time -- until the next time -- here are the points of view. Go to the Homes project which is staunchly pro-SunCal to get that point of view in relatively unbiased terms.

For the anti-Initiative view, which trends to be largely anti-SunCal Developer in toto, go to Save our City (SOCA) Notable names here feature Pat Payne and Pat Bail, both of whom have run for mayor here as Independents.

We are split down the middle in the offices, with some of us seeing the SunCal project the only hope of building affordable housing out there, and some of us just disgusted with all that SunCal is about.

One does need to know that whenever Developers are concerned, there is bottom feeder dreck and scum attached -- always was and always will be -- so no matter what happens, a fair amount of nose-holding will be necessary just keep down one's lunch for all the filth that will arise. Its really a matter of finding the best bad deal and working with that to get at least something for the people out of all the feeding frenzy, so one might as well go with SunCal as with anyone else. Nobody builds parks and "affordable housing" out of pure altruism after all.

After practically all of City Hall turned against the Initiative, which appears to be heading for a flaming defeat, SunCal has already devised another Initiative for the 2012 Election and is in "talks" between its reps and City Hall.

YOUR GHOST

We got more bad news across the wire here, as it appears that the person who drowned recently in the estuary during an as yet unexplained incident was known to one of us here in the Offices. Ryan Divine was found clinging to a post in the estuary January 20th and was extracted from there by Coast Guard who delivered him to the Island Hospital where he unfortunately passed away, apparently due to exposure and hypothermia. He was 24. A young girl in the offices reports that she "grew up with him" and so knew him for many years. We extend our sorrowful regrets to this person and to the family. This makes Ryan the fourth person within our circle to pass away within as many months. A memorial service was held at St. Phillip Neri on the 25th.

COMING HOME

Took in Berkeley Rep's production of Coming Home by Athol Fugard thanks to the kindness of strangers.

Incidentally, Island-Life thanks all who contribute tickets towards promoting East Bay Culture and Arts with no thought of self-promotion.

(l to r) At Berkeley Rep, Roslyn Ruff and Kohle Thomas Bolton star
in Coming Home by master dramatist Athol Fugard.
Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com

Athol Fugard remains a giant of dramatic literature long after his courageous stand against his country's official position of apart-hate, known as apartheid has been set aside. Besides his stand against an official policy of racial discrimination, his plays have long been studied as prime examples of how theatre can be a vehicle of political and social immanence, fully engaged with social change and active in motivating positive revolution.

His is not the dead and dessicated drama of neo-classicism which is experienced by comfortable people who have just departed a nice dinner in an expensive restaurant to enjoy high tone and "elevated thoughts" devoid of currency, but a real depiction of real people engaging with present issues. This is not Racine, with his ultra-polite descriminations and avoidances of ugliness but Gorki thrust in the face.

The play begins quietly, with a softly spoken monologue by the girl returning to the place of her youth to her child. All of the language is subdued, even the sung parts. By the end of the long first act, however, the language has become raw and shouted and the emotions ragged and enflamed with passions. The young girl who entered with such calm assertion and quiet promise has become a banshee howling "fuck you!" at the one person she must depend upon to save her child.

(l to r) At Berkeley Rep, Jaden Malik Wiggins, Thomas Silcott and Roslyn Ruff star
in Coming Home by master dramatist Athol Fugard.
Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com

This is not a comfortable play to sit well with after dinner apertifs, but engaged theatre that grapples with some very serious issues.

It has been the position of the Berkeley Rep in recent years to present theatre that is engaged with social issues, and not be detached or removed, and to Les Waters we must grant a significant amount of credit for this artistic direction.

Post-aparteid South Africa remains a land torn by the issues of its past and the heritage of an unruly present. The AIDS pandemic has been widely reported and the issues come out forcefully during the course of this play. As the principal character lays dying of this plague, from which so many of our best and brightest have died, there is a hope offered in the figure of the young Mannetjie, who remains "after the frost, the one plant still green and living."

It was interesting taking in this play after watching the DVD version of District 9, which was filmed substantially in the Soweto district of Jo'burg in South Africa, and which references a real population displacement effort that took place during the apartheid era.

We suggest going to this kind of theatre, which remains engaged, difficult and provocational over any other which seeks to present distant and detached high-mindedness that is lacking in real attachment to present day concerns.

(l to r) At Berkeley Rep, Lou Ferguson and Jaden Malik Wiggins
star in Coming Home by master dramatist Athol Fugard.
Photo courtesy of kevinberne.com

Coming Home - who’s who

Athol Fugard, Playwright

Gordon Edelstein, Director

Eugene Lee, Scenic Design

Jessica Ford, Costume Design

Stephen Strawbridge, Lighting and Projection Design

Corrine K. Livingston, Sound Design

John Gromada, Original Compositions

Lynne Soffer, Voice and Speech Consultant

Michael Suenkel *, Stage Manager

Todd Yocher, Assistant to the Director

Tristan Jeffers, Assistant Scenic Design

Robert Rutt, Vocal Coach

Victoria Northridge, Studio Teacher

Mina Morita, Children’s Assistant

Cast

Roslyn Ruff, Veronica Jonkers

Kohle T. Bolton, Mannetjie Jonkers (Younger)

Jaden Malik Wiggins, Mannetjie Jonkers (Older)

Thomas Silcott, Alfred Witbooi

Lou Ferguson, Oupa Jonkers

Brandon Charles, Understudy (Young Mannetjie)

Victor McElhaney, Understudy (Older Mannetjie)

WHAT'S GOING ON

The kind folks at Slate inform us that a new exhibit will open in Oaktown's Temescal District February 5th, when there will be wine, sparkling conversation, beautiful people and "Modernism:Expressionism new work by Lisa Barker and Cheryl Rabin."

This show celebrates two artists' passionate engagement with painting as both a formal and expressive medium.

Lisa Barker's abstract paintings are inspired by northern California landscapes. Barker loves to travel and explore what she calls "special places," returning to the studio to build up sturdy, almost architecturally-structured compositions using colors remembered from the locations she has visited (e.g Alpine Meadows, Obexer's Market, Castanoa).

While her focus is on balancing color and form in layered blocks of paint in a manner reminiscent of Bay Area Abstract Expressionist Hans Hoffman, her references to nature and the outside world add a topical and personal aspect to the content.

Cheryl Rabin studied fashion design in London in the 1970s before becoming a painter. Her love of the human form-its shape, weight, and movement-comes through in these loose gestural paintings, which are artfully sketched in front of a live model. Restricted to 20-minute poses, Rabin captures the figure quickly but deftly, only later coming back to rework certain areas and build up to a finished, but still essential, composition.

Check out Slate Art & Design for more info.

HUMAN KINDNESS IS OVERFLOWING / THINK ITS GOING TO RAIN TODAY

Its been a gloomy and overcast week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. The dark waves mutter "winter, winter, winter" as they clash against the riprap along the shore and the sky has been wracked by the unruly ropes of savage weather, bound all in felted greys and blues and torment. Down by the iron waters a splash reverberates against the hard stones and a young life is swept away.

In Babylon every corner sprouts anouther insistent panhandler and the BART stations are thronged with buskers and dime-gatherers, all calling "Spare change! Spare change!" If you have trouble, go to Sausal Creek. That's for East Bay. If you are Babylon, you are on your own during the Great Recession.

It's the dark time of Winter when there is no mercy and all that Christmas would have taught only a short while ago is long forgotten. Savage! Savage is the sjambok, the whip, the asp in this time.

Down by the Strand the folks huddle in their squat on Otis, Mr. Howitzer's one bedroom cottage that houses some fifteen people during the Great Recession and the rental pressures as the demonic Developers seek to convert the Island into the Place of Pleasant Living by the Bay, even as that dream evaporates in the face of realities.

The heat has been turned off but everyone is gathered around the fire of driftwood to get some brief warmth before crawling into sleeping bags around the hearth. Such is life down along the Strand as Occasional Quentin looks up through the torn porch roof to examine the encroaching clouds of the next storm.

Down in the Garden Javier has been pacing under his rainhat, staring at the soil and the anti-rodent netting spread out across the loam. In other parts of the country, the wind blows snow crystals across the crusted surface of deep drifts. Here, Javier is pacing the brick borders of his garden. In other parts of the country, they are all laying wagers on when the station-wagon will break through the ice during spring and plunge then into the lake.

But down there, Javier is staring at the soil, commenting on the uprising. Nobody plants in the Spring, because the wise farmer lays down the seed during the harshest and coldest of times, while others are asleep. Spring is the time to enjoy the results of what one has already done. Javier, who stems from old stock, knows this well. That is why he planted his seed during the cold November days. Now, even while Winter holds sway and the Earth keeps her face turned away, come the quiet eruptions.

You just get down there and you dig down and you sure enough are going to find these green whorls firing up -- something is going on down there. And it happens pretty much every year.

Now we have to tell you people to the East of here that a couple more storms are coming your way out there, you who have the deep blue world of white ice and snow to deal with for a time. But be patient. The change will come soon enough.

Over at the Old Same Place Bar Suzie is serving out hot toddies and Gaelic Coffees to the rude and uninitiated and those simply looking for shelter during the storm. In the corner a band of gypsies sits at the table, playing cards among one another. One of them, a woman wearing a shawl goes from table to table offering to tell fortunes by the tarot or by the palm for a fee.

No one knows from where gypsies originally came. They have no home but their caravans, so there is no returning to any place one can name in their language or any other. So people keep a wary eye upon them, although they mean no more or less harm than anyone else. Sometimes they get rounded up and put in places like District 9 until people tire of them there or desire that place and then they get evicted to some other place. But for now, they are safe in the Old Same Place Bar. Here on this Island. For now.

The old woman tells Eugene that he is a great hunter and by the end of November of this year, he surely will experience great luck. This makes him feel a little better and forget a little bit about how badly things are going, for the economy is bad, no one has any money, it is winter, winter, winter. And its going to rain today.

From far across the way, the long howl of the throughpassing train comes ululating across the muttering waters of the estuary as the locomotive hauls its heavy load from the Port through the dark and shuttered Jack London Waterfront, heading off to places unknown.

JANUARY 24, 2010

MURDER IN THE TRAILER PARK

This week's headline photo is a shocking display of animalistic savagery upon the mean streets of the Big City. It was a switchblade night and a hot rain on 42nd Street -- the umbrellas? nah, they aint got a chance.

Its a jungle out there, boys and girls and only those with the sharpest claws will survive.

CH, CH, CH, CHANGES

Returning visitors will note the floating jukebox created by Chad. The control buttons do work, so you can change songs, replay, or just mute the thing entirely. We are looking at other controls for the feller, and we'll be changing the content periodically. The first addition will probably be Denby's rendition of "Hamsterdamn? I don't wanna go to no New Hamsterdamn!" which was planned for the aborted 2009 Holiday CD; its a thorough violation of Lawrence Juber guaranteed to cause the hackles to raise to raise of anyone who desires such trivial things as harmony, timing, melody and the right notes. .

Also, we are busy working on code behind the scenes to make things load quicker for you folks as content gets added. And the Sidebar will have some changes, as certain members of our Staff appear to have a Crush on a certain entertainer named "Carmen" (no woman ever wore Produce with such elan, we must admit), that gal will make a recorded appearance. And since no Californian should be without a solid underpinning of that most sibilant of languages, Spanish, we provide a little Spanish lesson as well, courtesy of Firesign Theatre.

We also fixed up some of the broken hyperlinks in our ever vigilant quest to improve the lives of Island-Lifers.

HARD TIMES COME AGAIN NO MORE

As many of you probably know, one of the music world's dearest voices passed away at the young age of 63, when Kate McGarrigle succumbed to cancer recently. The McGarrigle sisters became world famous in the early sixties with their extraordinary voices, earning a joint Order of Canada award, the highest honor bestowed by that country. They toured all over the world, performed with and for virtually everyone, and wrote countless songs that garnered dozens of Grammy awards for the folks that covered them. Not content with that, Kate married Loudon Wainright and produced a pair of Grammy award winning progeny, Rufus and Martha.

Their family enjoyed performing songs by Stephen C. Foster, he of Civil War fame, so here we provide a black and white video of the young sisters with their kids performing the timely Foster song, "Hard Times," from the PBS Special, "Songs from the Civil War."

LIKE THE WEATHER

The series of dockwallopers shows no signs of ending, albeit we have enjoyed a slight pause through the weekend with only gloomy skies above and some sprinkles, however the forecast is for more of the same series lining up to march from West to East, causing mudslide dangers in SoCal, snow closures along 395 and Route 80 and yet more misery for you folks East of here. Rain is expected to build through tonight, getting heavy tomorrow and through Tuesday with a midweek pause of moderate clouds but pretty nippy temps in the thirties, followed by more of the same precipitation on Friday. Expect some more drenchers in about a week and yet more feet of powder on the East Coast while Old Man Winter puts in one last brough-haha for the Season..

Some of the Old Timers are reporting go-aheads with plans for fishing trips on the Eastern Sierra in February "pending weather conditions", so we would expect the Greybeards to have some insight here and perhaps some hope of relief.

IMAGINE A BRIGHT BLUE BALL IN SPACE SPINNING, SPINNING FREE

Its time for a look at the World and what everybody else outside the Provinces might be talking about.

The headlines in most papers concern the same subject that has been dominating ours for a couple of weeks: the ongoing disaster that is Haiti.

From Der Spiegel, the loud message is jarring: "Haiti entwickelt sich wieder zur Kolonie". This article, and others, make the assumption that the total collapse of social order and infrastructure in the poverty-striken nation means that the only real resolution will be colonization of the territory which has no functioning government, no functioning social system, no functioning utility system, and nobody really to put these things together. The article notes that it took two days for Obama to contact Rene Preval, the Haitian president, because the telephone system was entirely destroyed. Brasil has controlled the national telephone system, as it does in several South American and Caribbean nations, and that country has not yielded over its purview.

France has sent a police presence to assist with maintaining order in the increasingly unruly cities, while the aircraft carrier USS Carl Vinson is mentioned as a floating airport provided by the US.

With so many countries having a sayso in what goes on now, the Haitian president has effectively thrown his hands in the air to declare that, although the country is "nominally a Democracy", it really needs to keep cool and let the various powers handle things as the government has no real ability to handle the crisis. In fact, since 2004, the country has been a UN "protectorate" anyway, and the earthquake solidifies this status into that of a "colony", but of UNO, instead of any single nation. Really, what is implied is that the player with the biggest muscle takes control -- and responsiblity -- over the entire future of 9 million people.

Not much is reported here about Haiti's neighbor, the relatively more well-off Dominican Republic and its response to the crisis occuring to its neighbor. The DR has always regarded its neighbors as inherently "dirty, anarchic, and violent", according to the German report, but some help is forthcoming in the form of individuals contributing heavy equipment, such as bulldozers, and the Jimani hospital taking in thousands of the severely injured.

Also in the BRD news, the recent terrorist attack in Kabul which killed dozens of people after an extended firefight.

The internal news concerns the political crisis happening to the SPD, which is the more middle-liberal of the four German political parties that share power there.

The Google affair in China was reported in several German newspapers, with warnings that the hacker attacks are likely to continue no matter what Google decides to do.

A curious report did a follow-up on the Öltanker "Exxon Valdez", which spilled a massive oil leak off of Alaska 21 years ago. Appears the consequences of that disaster continue to plague the region, a story that is not pursued very much around here.

Move over Matisyahu, now we have a Zen Monk rapper described under the headline: "Yeah, the Buddha, that's what I am talkin' about, yo!"

LE MONDE

The Haitian story concerns itself with "logistical problems" and the "serial precipitation of castastrophe", while trying to maintain a sense of distant cool about the former French colony. France still smarts from the problems engendered by the persistence into the 20th century of its colonial issues, and there is scant desire for deeper involvement with foreign places that do not bear fond memories of colonialization.

On the same page are articles about the "foreigner problems", with one article focussing on the "right to vote" for non-native French.

Most of Le Monde concerned itself with local national issues, with the government contemplating a tax on internet usage -- a theme we have heard before -- and with the loss of unemployment benefits, which the French consistently list as a set of "rights". Unemployment is far higher in Europe during the Recession than here, so the loss of benefits is seen as a serious ratcheting up of the poverty level nationwide. It is estimated that about 38-40% of the unemployed will lose benefits this year due to time limits.

Some argue that the catastrophe of so many unemployed losing benefits far outweighs the cost of finding a way to continue them as a function of the total national economy during this Recession.

EL MUNDO

A couple issues dominated the Spanish papers, besides football and Haiti. The election of Sebastián Piñera in Chile is seen as a opening a new era in that country, and indeed, the relatively rightist new president makes local business there feel better and his annoucement of a new "era" in relations with long time rival Peru is also seen as a major change.

Spain, for those who have paid attention, secured the EU presidency and the consequences of that were speculated upon, with the upshot being that it probably will make little difference to Spain except a bit of prestige.

MEXICO

Various Mexican papers talked about the Bicentennial "Bicentenario de La Independencia, Mexico, 2010". The 1810 liberation from Spain also is bolstered by the 1910 Revolution that toppled Porfirio Diaz.

The Haitian crisis brought back painful memories of the 1985 Mexican earthquake, which registered an 8.1 on the Richter scale. The quake caused an incredible toll of death and destruction in Mexico City.

PAN launched a survey on n Mexico City on same-sex marriage and the right to adopt children by same-sex couples. The survey would last all week said Mexico City PAN leader Marian Gómez del Campo.

The Pinera election cited his "fecund and ambitious" agenda for ties between Peru and Chile.

There was a fairly long article speculating on China's putative relaxation of controls on the value of its currency, which turned out to be entirely speculation when other international sources were consulted. Nevertheless, the article did indicate Mexico's high interest in the Asian-Pacific Rim and its eagerness to become a major player there.

Not a single country showed the slightest interest in our own fulminations over health care. The Recession is seen as ongoing with no sign of change in the offing, so just deal. A few countries had the usual People-style fluff pieces on what Mrs. Obama was wearing on so and so occasion.

So that's it, that's the news of the world from Island-Life. We read newspapers in five languages so that you don't have to.

ON AN ISLAND

A while ago we reported some jerk had robbed the household of Islander and world-famous opera chanteuse Frederika von Stade in October. We are pleased to report that the thief was apprehended and that it appears that most of the stolen property may be recovered.

The thief apparently tried to sell items at Michaan's Auctions, which is located here on the Island. Not only that, the thief returned a second time, at which time police say they arrested 47-year-old Kelly Lee Baslee on suspicion of possessing stolen property.

This is especially pleasing in that it does appear no traffic ordinances were violated at any time during the crime or the apprehension of the suspect. Way to go!

If you follow the police blotter with any sort of regularity, you will appreciate a neat web-based tool for pinpointing trouble-spots.

The City of Alameda Police Department is providing a Crime Mapping tool to show reported incidents of crime in Alameda. You can view an overall snapshot of the City, or drill down to certain neighborhood. You can search by time period or by incident type to see, say, how many DUIs occurred on St Patrick's Day.

You can use a tool to view trend reports, so, for example from October 8, 2009 until January 13, 2010, 27.4% of crimes were Theft/Larceny.

There is also a "cluster" option where crimes within a certain radius of one another get flagged with a number so you can see where crimes are concentrated.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/inalameda/index#ixzz0dMdtWVH1.

The Frank Bette Center for the Arts has a call out and deadline of February 1 for Island photographers to apply to the Alameda on Camera competition. Generally this means that registered photogs get a specific section of the Island to document within a stated period of time in February. Work will be exhibited and juried in April. Go to http://frankbettecenter.org/aoc-exhibit.html for more details and application.

LIFE IS A CABARET MY FRIEND

Island-Lifer Sue reported on the memorial for Norton Buffalo held at the Fox, where the Doobie Brothers, Steve Miller, Maria Muldaur, Roy Rogers, and Bonnie Raitt tore it up for the blues harpist who died of cancer at the end of last year. Word was the entire affair, which raised money to help out Buffalo's family, was fantastic, with each performer yanking the energy level up a notch, starting with Bonnie Raitt's searing opener; that little red-headed girl sure can rock.

A gaggle of people attended the sold out "gypsy music" festival starring Dorado Schmidt and Dave Grisman at Yoshi's East here on the Warmer Side of the Bay. Schmidt interacted with Grisman with his customary sense of humor and playfulness to put in a full evening of solid music influenced by Django Reinhart.

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Its been a soggy week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. The series of dockwallopers remains with yet another to drench the place on Monday, which will certainly lead to fairly cool weather.

Jose has been out in his garden, puttering under an umbrella while prodding the ground, looking for some signs of life. Does appear the freesias are starting to bud out and there are green shoots that look suspiciously like randy tulips, which always can cause some explosive energy when the season gets its mind around to change later on. The early favas are starting to erupt, which they will tend to do when planted in November. Yes, things are going on down there. You up there in snowbound Minnesota, just hang in there a bit. There will be mosquitos as big as sparrows bounding against the screens before long, just you wait.

Father Duran continues to make his daily revolution around the block that holds the Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint, turning smartly to the right as he proceeds clockwise on his regular course with his umbrella held stiff against the elements. Just as regularly, Pastor Nyquist of the Lutheran Church of Emmanuel proceeds as is his natural bent, anti-clockwise around the same block and the two nod at one another every day in passing the bus stop on Santa Clara.

Its night now, and all the regulars in the Old Same Place Bar are talking about the upcoming Special Election which is to determine the future of the Island, as some see it. Word has it that SunCal has already put up another Initiative for the 2012 mid-term elections, in anticipation this rather silly one will be sure to fail, so it probably will not be such a big determination after all.

Still it makes for a lot of grand talk and the place is hopping with Dawn and Suzie serving up those "Gaelic Coffees", so called because Padraic insists no Irishman would ever devise an insult to the Water of Life that would mix base materials like coffee and cream with "daycent wishkey".

The more simple among us opt for a Fat Tire, which comes with its own assortment of ribs and puns. "You say you have a Fat Tire? Well I've got a pump and a spare in the back . . .". It does work better when the talk is between the coarse and the fair sex.

Jose heard that The Man with the Red Shoes was in town across the water for a full two weeks, but impecunious circumstances prohibited a visit by the Editor, who has long admired the successful Radioman. An effort was made, an honest effort. The Island-Life jalopy was hauled out from the shed and was made ready to go when the gendarmes pulled the thing over for a broken headlight, so back it was to the shed. The crew went over to Frederika's to try to hitch a ride over to the opera house, as we knew she had a date there, but the imperious doorkeeper held us at bay.

"Frau von Stade, hier sind Gammler und alles unanstaendiges dazu. Was wollen Sie damit? Ah . . . du . . . weg! Einfach abhauen."

Ah yes, to be compared to trash and dismissed in the same sentence. Few enjoy the privilege. Or perhaps many.

Next, the plan was to obtain BART passage and perhaps entrance as embassadors in a side entrance. BART was amenable, albeit late. So rare for a regime which has made the trains finally run on time.

So the editor arrived at the Opera House in pelting rain and proceeded promptly to the stage entrance. To his great suprise, a burly man, entirely worthy of Dickens in apparel and demeanor, refused entry with many Anglo-Saxon attachments to his language, although his accent betrayed Eritrean ancestry. But if sufficient "drink money" were located, a position somewhere left of the lighting engineer might be found in the third etage . . .

In a steaming welter of rainwater the Editor fumed. Leon Spinks, Mohammed Ali and George Foreman have stood as geniuses of that Sweet Science, yet Anglo Saxon remains the language of refusal! Damn it!, he said. And still, it is Spanish that determines all that happens in California, for it is lack of Dolores that I now fail! Not enough dollars!

Jose stood there with a dripping umbrella, waiting for his boss to calm the fuck down and get real. "Why don't you just call your gabacho friend on the telephone when you get back. He is here two weeks already."

The Editor screamed, which caused several tourista to stop and stare, expecting a street performance, and the boys dragged him away as the SFPD began arriving with paddy wagons.

It was a dismal return on the sodding ferry, the last one of the night to the Island from the City, on which the Editor fretted and fumed on the deck above where on clear and sunny days the passengers admired the jewelry-draped skyline of Babylon, but which now swept rain and wind and all sorts of wind-born wrack and ruin against any who would dare stand up there on the bare metal planks. Back to the sadly middle-class and frumpy Island we all returned, with nothing to show for all our efforts.

In the Island offices, with their beat-up windowshades and broken slats and our humble fax machines, dusty shelves and tawdry cubicles our Editor damped and steamed his frustrations. A bottle of single-malt scotch was brought out to ease the pain.

Later that night the Editor told a story to Jose about how once as a child he had run to a camp of gypsies to warn them of how a group of men were planning to come and destroy them, for he had heard all about it in the barber shop. He was really deep in his cups.

The gypsies knew of what he spoke, for this kind of thing they knew well, and as they broke their camp the captain there asked the boy if he wanted to come with them, become a gypsy. Of course, such a thing would mean never returning to his former life.

The Editor did not know exactly why he did not go with the gypsies then. It may have been something as trivial as not wanting to be late for dinner that particular night.

The gypsies left and continue to wander the earth to this day.

The Editor became a sort of gypsy to whom no place is counted home.

The Man with Red Shoes returned to Minnesota.

Jose went to the Old Same Place Bar, where the regulars sought Oblivion from the Economy and all things Sour. After after twenty years of Altzheimer Ronnie Raygun and violently idiotic Bushes, the long train wreck that is Current Events shall not shunt aside easily, not by Brakeman Obama and not by any ineffectual Congress of Wack Engineers either. It occured to Suzie, somewhere in midshift, that there is really no final decision in anything. Its all process along the way and what matters is the sum total of everything decided. So the Sister City Status and all of that does not matter. What matters is what you have done and whether you have been kind or not in the process.

Jose palmed Eugene's keys as the man fumbled for the door and drove the weaving and wobbling man home past the dark and watchful front of Officer O'Madhauen's Crown Vic.

Right then the long wail of the throughpassing train ululated across the rain-spattered waters of the estuary as it steamed its way from the port of Oaktown through the dark and shuttered storefronts of the Jack London Waterfront to parts unknown.

Its a dark night in a city that knows how to keep its secrets, but in the Old Same Place Bar sits one bartender still pondering Life's Persistent Questions.

JANUARY 18, 2010

SHOAH

This week's image is a rather conflicted one that does require some background. The painting is a study of a Pope but not of Benedict or Pope Pius the XII, although the image has often been associated with that pontiff because of the work from which it comes, entitled by critics "the screaming pope series," and because of the time period in which it appeared -- immediately post WWII -- and by the known anti-religious bent of the painter, Francis Bacon. The work is actually entitled "Study after Velazquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X", a work originally done in 1650. That pope reigned during the Renaissance and was neither better nor worse than other popes.

References to the work, which reflects the high anxiety and paranoia of the Postwar period, have resurfaced as a partial response to the current Pope's initialization of the process that typically leads to sainthood for the controversial Pius XII. At least one artist has painted a "Screaming Pope Benedict" as a result of this decision and of other questionable deeds by the former Cardinal Ratzinger.

Generally the current brough-haha is over Pius XII's complete silence prior to and during WWII over the Holocaust.

As it stands, if you are a Catholic, the fact he was a Pope means he was a Good Guy, and those folks go cherry picking the facts in his favor. If you are not, then you are either anti-cleric or standing with your arms crossed, saying WTF. There's plenty in all three camps.

Cursory research indicates that Pius XII maintained official neutrality and complete public silence until 1944, when Allied Powers informed him of their intention for total victory and their good likelihood of achieving just that and that he better speak up or face fairly severe consequences.

The threat was not idle. By 1944 the Allies stood excellent chances of achieving their aims. Subsequent to victory, such notables as Reza Pahlavi went straight to prison for their collaboration with the Nazis. In prison Pahlavi remained until the British decided a man of his talents would be more useful heading up a puppet government in the newly created state of Iran.

That Pius XII knew of all of the anti-Semitism and the resultant extermination camps is beyond a shadow of a doubt, for his own Berlin nuncio informed him of such after Kristalnacht and the provost of the Berlin cathedral, Bernhard Lichtenberg, after offering prayers for the Jewish victims, was sent to Dachau, where he perished.

Pius XII was besieged by countless entreaties from many public officials in several countries to say something, however other than a few private efforts, which did manage to rescue a few thousand Jews, he wrote and said nothing other than a bare handful of rather vague and general messages.

Some speculate that his hatred of Communism or fear of reprisals against individual church officials prevented him from denouncing Fascism, however his exact motives remain unknown. Some of his actions actually hindered the escape of Jews to Brazil, a place that entertained an internal ecclesiastical dispute with the Vatican.

Generally, independent researchers -- without access to the Vatican's sealed records -- all agree that while not entirely indifferent, Pius XII's actions during WWII were contradictory, inconsistent and perplexing.

A joint Jewish/Catholic workshop opened at Yad Vashem to investigate the matters more fully. It does seem likely that whatever comes of this affair will be a product of Politics with a capital P, which already has been the hallmark of the current Pontiff, rather than of the Spirit.

MONEY, MONEY, MONEY

Okay, that was a bit much for "Image of the Week". How about this one, submitted by Chad, which purports to be that of a Wall Street Banker.

THERE'S NO SEX IN VIOLENCE

Staff members witnessed a shocking and savage assault and battery on St. Charles Street this past Tuesday. No joke, it was real.

Staff came out on hearing a woman screaming for help from 1551 St. Charles Street on the Island to see one Andre Pastre, the burly apartment manager of that building, straddling a woman while beating her with his fists while she screamed and fought back by clawing at the assailant's face. Her boyfriend, a Sean O'Connell, was attempting to pull the attacker off of the woman with little success.

A passerby had already called the police, who arrived within ten minutes.

By then Mr. Pastre had separated himself from the couple to walk to his car parked just in front of the building where he stowed away some personal effects while the couple huddled on the porch of the building.

The woman victim's name is presently being withheld by Staff pending investigation.

Mr. Pastore claimed that the two had attacked him and that they were under the influence of drugs.

We later interviewed Mr. O'Connell and the woman. Mr. O'Connell, a slightly-built musician who is raising a child of about eight years in that building as a single parent said that Mr. Pastre had been "baiting" him in a challenging manner for some time. He also expressed dismay about the drug activity that had taken place in the building during the managership of Mr. Pastore, as he felt the environment was not safe for his child. Mr. O'Connell had clear evidence of having been hit in the face some three days later, as one eye was entirely swollen shut. He alleged that Mr. Pastore had pinned him against the wall inside the building and punched him, causing the injury.

O'Connell stands about five nine in height and appears to weigh about 130 pounds at the most. Mr. Pastore works as a hauler and handyman, and is listed with the County as a Small Business and appears to weigh about 180 pounds.

The woman declined to comment and no explanation for the cause of the incident was offered.

We could not make further inquiries as Mr. O'Connell was taking his child on a field trip to a California Mission as part of a school project.

Mr. Pastore has been observed by various Staffers and patrons of nearby businesses to have a temper, to be extremely inflexible, and to be verbally abusive to people on the street and to tenants in his building. We have also observed other apartment managers in this block, who appear to stem from an earlier era when the Navy was here, to be assaultive and verbally confrontational. We are not sure why property owners retain problem individuals like this, but as the Island trends to a more upscale environment, the need to remove them becomes more and more pressing. Nobody wants to be screamed at by some maniac who has the veins bulging in his thick neck, and certainly the kind of folks the landlords would like to attract here will make short legal shrift of such people.

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Other folks live by the sword. Islanders live by the golf club. And Silly Council got an earful all about the revisions and anticipated closures regarding the Island MIF golfcourse. When we first heard about this issue, the Course had been raking in bucks for the City for quite a while, when some errant group suggested we farm out the management of the course to private interests because we were making too much money off of the enterprise.

WTF as the kids like to say.

Next, we hear that the MIF golfcourse, named after a nickname for Chuck Corica who ran successfully for the Mayor position three times in the 1960's on a single issue ticket -- preserve the golf course -- is losing money and must be farmed out to private interests. Who all seem to want to reduce the number of holes by about half. And oh! What to do with the remaining acreage! Why build on it of course! Why waste perfectly decent wooded land on golf!

Do I smell "Developer" in this mix somewhere? I think I do.

Well, they ruined their City across the Bay, now they want to come here and ruin ours. They've done it before and they'll do it again. Except this time the old guys with rusty carts and saggy bags all converged on the Silly Council to raise a royal ruckus convincing Lena Tam to delay votes on what happens to the long contended land for which Chuck Corica fought so long ago.

Alice Lai Bitker has announced she is not running for reelection to the Board of Supervisors this next time around, but did not state what she would be doing instead. We fondly remember the girl as she served as aide to the Board some fifteen years ago, working her way up through the ranks to elected office, and so wish her well in whatever she now pursues.

We do welcome Councilperson Frank Matarrese to the unenviable race for the Mayorship. Frank was among the first to indicate budgetary problems some four years ago, was the author of the initiative against the Iraq deployments of local Coast Guard and was an early doubter of the SunCal Initiative. He is a devoted longtime Islander, has served the community well in a responsive manner as member of the Council and we think he would act well as Mayor of this little town.

Besides, we like the sound of "Mayor Frank". Has the proper ring to it.

ONE IN THE NAME OF LOVE

Monday some of us will celebrate the birth of Great American. He was a simple preacherman who wanted only to make things a little better for members of his flock. He spoke the Truth and he spoke it plainly and forthrightly. He was a man entirely without pretense and he did not seek fame nor notoriety. He simply desired justice. He was not a stupid man and although he did not want contention or strife or violence, he knew that someone would try to kill him. In fact the last speech he made referred to his own anticipated murderer, and was one he had delivered many times.

We do not celebrate his death, but the things he accomplished for all Americans this Monday for this Monday we celebrate the vivid and life-affirming legacy of Martin Luther King.

This Monday we will connect with old friends and informal associations going back many years in memory of truly great American Statesman, the like of which few can match these days. Save, perhaps, the present President of the United States, who is our hope. And the realization of our Dreams.

ON AN ISLAND

Its been a damp week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. The roiling boiler clouds finally tromped on in with a dockwalloper that looks to be settling in for spell of real weather, giving some relief to the reservoirs and the snow-bare mountains up higher, although we expect this means yet more misery for folks East of here.

Local Islander Mike Rettie indicated that his gauge showed a good October but a poor November and December as far as averages went, so we shall see what we shall see as far as the drought.

Garrison remained with his roadshow for an unexpectedly pleasurable second week over there in the Opera House across the water. Local faves bluesman Elvin Bishop and our very own Fredericka von Stade gifted the airwaves with the Man in Red Shoes putting in yet another enjoyable and grammatically correct show. Have to concur with Mrs. Sundberg: Listened to this week's show and must say, it was not bad.

To our great surprise the lovely Frederika sang a song about the Island, which moved many of us to tears -- we hadn't thought we were worth that much consideration.

Soon as that one hit, the transom overflowed with a deluge of messages from folks, all saying, "Didja hear that?!"

Oh dear. We are so Midwest that when anyone pays the slightest attention, we get all confused. Surely they meant some other island. Hawaii perhaps.

For those of you who do not know, the name "Alameda" is a Spanish word meaning "woody promenade" or "avenue of trees". Its also the name of the County.

At one time the largest natural grove of oak trees in the world grew here, extending from the Island up to the crestline of the hills.

As a last trivia tidbit, the song Garrison sings about walking in Golden Gate Park was based on "Down by the Salley Gardens", which goes to show you; you can't leave the Bay Area without a touch of the Irish.

Okay now, before we get all fluttery, we need to get down to the Old Same Place Bar.

Okay now, before we get all fluttery, we need to get down to the Old Same Place Bar. Along the way we pause in the windy and rainy dark and look out over the Bay to the lights of Babylon across the water. Its a fairly sheltered place, with a lagoon behind and a smattering of trees clustered around picnic tables.

Its a place that could be sculpted into the imaginations of everyone who lived. It could have been the broad palm of God holding all of us up above an abyss. It was only a group of dirty wooden tables swept by rain.

Passing the Rettie place, a group of old friends sit around the table and a bowl of paella while gypsy music plays from the radio and the rain sifts down through the lamplit trees. Reminiscences and conversation.

Inside the Old Same Place Suzie set up the drinks and Dawn took the orders and Padraic worked the kitchen. It was business as usual. And the sweating workers were diamonds in the rough.

In other parts of the country snow lay deep on the hillocks and passion lay buried beneath layers of guilt and oppression. It was deep winter and heaviness rested on the land. A crust of ice and snow layered the land in Minnesota; in Virginia, the rime encrusted all of the emotions of the moment, chilling desire, and in Massachusetts people actually contemplated electing a dastardly Republican to fill Ted Kennedy's seat. In Mississippi, the trout beneath the freeze. In Haiti, utter disaster prevails.

The Deep Recession continues.

But deep beneath the blanket of snows the deep green shoots are already firing up. Tulips preparing for sudden glory. Freesias are getting themselves ready for an explosive eruption. Sudden change is about to happen and you had better get yourselves ready for this change will be extraordinary in its flowering. There is something going on down there and there is no stopping what is about to happen.

Closing time and Last Call. Folks spill out of the Old Same place and scatter beneath the falling rain to all directions.

Old friends under the Rettie porchlight saying good-bye. Water pouring from the eaves

Years from now someone will ask, "Where were you and what did you do during the Great Recession?" Did you keep your job? Did you lose it with flailing fists, like some angry handyman loses his cool? Were you stingy or were you kind? Somewhere someone is writing a book about you that will be remembered. This Island is not a grandiose place of tall towers and alabaster; its a place of Hobbits who do not want any adventures, only to prop our furry feet up on the hob. Across the water we can see the Shining City of Possibilities, and there that place should stay, always distant yet always possible. Always in view.

Like the end of Hard Times and the coming of Peace. We are not there yet, but perhaps someday.

As the old friends walk away their separate ways beneath the rain, the long wail of the throughpassing train comes ululating across the dimpled waters of the estuary as the locomotive wends its way with its fiery eye past the dark and shuttered storefronts of the Jack London Waterfront, heading from the Port of Oaktown to parts unknown along its dripping tracks of iron.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

JANUARY 10, 2010

BABY DONE A BAD BAD THING

One of our staff returned from the frigid East recently, where temps in NYC dropped to an even 0 degrees, resulting in a devotion to indoor activities during the visit there. Chief among them was a trip to the Museum of Modern Art where our attended an exhibit of work by Tim Burton. One particular piece attracted his attention, compelling our off-duty reporter to knips this photo of a drawing entitled, "Never shoot a constipated poodle."

Kinda says it all.

PARADISE BY THE DASHBOARD LIGHTS

Boys and girls, its come around to the time when we must learn you all proper all about the birds and the bees. This came to our attention only recently and by degrees. Oh, we know. You would rather be out popping squirrels with your new Xmas present popgun, or snuggling there with your Auntie and a cup of nice warm cocoa. If the neighbor girl or boy comes to mind, well, we know you would rather play the booger game or see who can climb the highest without getting into trouble in the madrones.

Its a terribly tedious thing, if taught properly by your Elders, and such instruction is meant to guide you into healthy pursuits like getting drunk at Frat keggers or wrecking the family car. Cold showers and vigorous excercise on steroids. Things like that.

But recently we have noticed some curious tendencies popping up around here among the members of our staff. No pun intended.

Chad has taken to submitting rather salacious material for inclusion here, material we feel is fraught with potential for damage of the most erotic kind. We mean things like that reading of James Joyce's "Araby", a work of notorious inclination written by an equally notorious writer whose magnum opus, Ulysses, once faced the probity of the Supreme Court of the United States.

We have scanned that book fairly thoroughly in search of certain passages, which we are happy to say, contain references that are rather stimulating to say the least.

Then there was the coverage of the Berkeley Poetry Slam (see below) during which famous poet Denise Jolly began one reading with "I like dick."

Boys and girls, she was not speaking of anyone named Richard. No, she was not.

We were shocked. Simply shocked.

So as a benefit to our less worldly readers we offer this two fer video special, featuring a government training video created for the U.S. Airforce, meant we imagine to teach those randy flyboys what its all about. In 1968.

To bring us all up to date, we have a contemporary expert, Madonna, and a reading from her own magnum opus on the subject.

Yes, you all can now claim with perfect truth that Island-Life has posted not one, but two sex videos.

Learn and enjoy.

And in Madonna's own words, ...

THEY REACH FOR THEIR MOMENT / AND MAKE AN HONEST STAND

Its been some time since any of us dropped in on the poetry scene, having experienced such a thoroughly stinging rejection the last time around. A couple of us on the staff here bear the distinction of once having attained sufficient notoriety in Babylon so as to have been booed off the stage -- prior to reading a single word.

So it was that with an army of some sixteen friendlies we marched up to Berkeley's Starry Plough to make sure that did not happen to one of us for Berkeley's Poetry Slam emceed that night by Ekabhumi and Tatyama. Jazz music was supplied by Three Blind Mice. We are happy to say that the rough and tumble poetry slam thing now runs with some rules to it and a sense of openness that was absent for a while on the other side of the Bay.

Money prizes are involved now, which is perhaps not a good thing, but we will table the final decision on that pending further review.

Out of sixteen plus signups, a lottery culled about eleven to read for the first round. Five random unaffiliated judges were selected and the sum of point tallies for each read was recorded by a secretary. Four poets made it to the second round for the first place try. Audience was encouraged to particpate with "good natured heckling" and solid boos for any use of the published "anti-word" of the day. Each reading was limited to 3.5 minutes with points deducted for overtime.

The emphasis that night was placed solidly on drinking beer and having fun. As for the poems, the better reads featured the neo-beat free form rap style declaimed with lots of emphasis. What has not changed from the eighties and nineties is the traditional subject matter of graphic sex, racism, sexual identity, and rape.

Visting dignitary was Denise Jolly, third place finisher in the National Poetry Slam contest. Denise, a large and lovely lady, was dropping by on the first step of a national tour in which she would be living entirely off of performance proceeds. As a national luminary, she clearly provided the best work that night in terms of musicality, presence, delivery, and construction. Playing to a crowd of adoring fans, she drew from a grab bag of works that featured a piece about Michael Jackson that segued into Ed McMahon, and a randy number that began "I like dick." Her best read, however, was probably a lyric about her mother singing "Amazing Grace," which Jolly sang affectingly with a powerful voice.

If you have never been to a Slam or even to a regular poetry reading, we recommend this one for starters. Be prepared for a fairly raucous, good-natured evening and get your lungs in shape to cheer for the poets you like best like it is a sporting event.

The weekly slam happens each Wednesday at the old Starry Plough on 3101 Shattuck. Show starts at 8:30pm and admission is $8. Its possible to work around the admission fee for subsequent events, depending on need for volunteer help.

This Wednesday, the World Poetry Champ of 2008, Joaquin Zihuatanejo, will be the featured guest, so expect a crowd.

WHAT'S HE BUILDING IN THERE?

For a quite a while we have been meaning to drop into a a couple of highly interesting venues that started up more than a year ago here on the Island. Saturday night we finally managed to slip on over to Autobody on Park Street to catch the opening of a solo show by an artist who calls himself Matt136. Autobody is the brainchild of Jacqueline Cooper and Colin Herrick, who converted an old mortgage brokerage firm above an auto body shop on Park Street into a chic display and performance space that would be well at home in either London's Soho or Berkeley's new Temescal Art District.

Their gallery is a hop-skip over the Park Street Bridge right into the "Jingletown" area of Oakland, yet another sign that the Warmer Side of the Bay is developing talent that is escaping the high rents of other locations around the metro area.

Matt136 does work that looks like someone fell asleep watching Tim Burton movies while high on mescaline. Skull forms and the stitched mouth face of Jack from The Nightmare before Xmas flock around Peanuts characters while the Indian god Ganush floats above an old fashioned gramophone while holding domestic tools.

There is a sense of humor as well as a sense of frustration and ominous decay; in all of his images there is the impression of movement, of a story happening. His sensibility is similar to that of certain graphic novel artists, and it is no surprise that he does have at least one book of drawings. His mordant humor is one that appreciates Tom Waits -- there is an ink drawing of Waits with a reference to his Black Rider theatre piece, which we reviewed here a couple years ago.

According to Amy George of Autobody, "Matt136 is meticulous in his craft. Old vinyl records are sawn into landscapes across which people and animals march and a simple ball point pen is used to produce highly detailed images through repetitive cross hatching. As a skateboarder, Matt136 has produced a number of skate decks and also deconstructs the boards themselves to act as environments for his characters. The work is obsessive and extremely focused but retains a playful, almost cartoon-like quality that allows Matt136 to address complicated personal and social issues while still seducing his audience. Drowning drunks, insecure parents and a variety of levels of frustration are all mirrored in his characters, as is a celebration of the diversity of emotions and challenges that face both the artist and his audience."

As for the gallery, they have space available for special events, and periodically host events of their own, including music and performance. Check out their website at WWW.autobodyfineart.com.

PSA

We've got a couple new sites for those of you East Bay boosters out there, especially lovers of Oaktown across the water there. These suggestions come from Tom York.

Make Oakland Better Now! is a grass-roots civic organization dedicated to improving the City of Oakland. Make Oakland Better Now! strives to use issue research, education, advocacy, outreach and candidate vetting to empower Oakland’s independent voters.

Make Oakland Better Now! is an unincorporated association, with membership open to all residents of and businesses in the City of Oakland with plans to become a fully recognized social welfare organization under Section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code. For more info, go to http://www.makeoaklandbetternow.org.

And for a site on local events happening in Oaktown, especially with focus upon the African-American Community, folks should drop in to visit http://oaklandlocal.com.

NIGHTHAWKS AT THE DINER

Its been a quiet week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. Heard Garrison's roadshow blew through here for a stint at the War Memorial Opera House over there in Babylon this weekend. Heard also that he compared the infamous Babylon weather to "eternal Spring", which it may very well be in comparison to present-moment Minnesota now enjoying average noon-day temps of about minus twenty degrees.

Due to the impecunious nature of the Office coffers, we had to forgo attendence there, and so we never got to tell the Man with the Red Shoes how we always had wanted to grow older, dispensing wisdom and witticisms to adoring multitudes with ravishing Scandanavian women hung on the arms and legions of readers begging for autographed copies of any one or all of the several dozen published books, while inbetween runon sentences we would host all sorts of brilliantly talented folks coming in from all over the world to be our friends on a wildly successful radio show. And furthermore, to go to work wearing red shoes.

Well, instead of any of that, we just got old. That part we managed all right.

Javier is back on the Artbeat desk again, taking care to shield himself appropriately after last year's heart bruising by the lovely Leona of San Leandro.

Jose tells him that Javier is lucky his heart was the only organ damaged in that fiasco, but then Jose is an earthy fellow from Sinaloa, and does not share Javier's finer feelings about such matters. "Hey, Javier, forget that gabacha and lets go have margaritas at La Pinata!"

The food at La Pinata is not very authentic nor very good, but because they make the best margaritas, nobody complains very much.

We do have Lutherans here, indeed we have pretty much a sampling of everything here, but our Lutheran pastor, Reverend Bauer rides about on a Harley Davidson, which probably would not go over well in Lake Wobegon.

Indeed the once dominant religion used to be Catholicism hereabouts, but not even Jose or Javier pay much attention to it anymore.

It may be because of this, or any other laissez faire attitude, that resulted in Father Guimon being called away and replaced by Father Riccio at the Basilica. Nobody knows exactly why Fr. Guimon was replaced, whether due to illness, incapacity, or ill favor. He certainly strenuously objected to performing rites in the grotto of the Church of the Sanctified Elvis vigorously enough, but the new pope is a German and Germans are known to be highly inflexible.

As mi abuelta often said, "is always something."

Probably the old Cardinal Rattenfanger would not approve of the New Year's Convocation in which Pastor Inquist of the Lutheran Church of Grand Street, Rev. Freethought of the Unitarian Church, Rebbe Mendelnusse, Father Duran of the Church of Our Lady of Incessant Complaint, and a few others all gather at the Home of Truth Unity church to ring in the new year.

Unlike Lutherans, Catholics tend to wack each other's emotions like so many pinatas, using any kind of verbal kendo stick handy until everything erupts in screams and sobbing. For all of that Father Duran tends to rely on Pastor Inquist to supply choral arrangements for special occasions because the Lutherans tend to possess the more talented singers.

This sort of thing is probably also something of which the pope would no approve, but until the doctrine of infallibility gets called up -- something that happens only every eight hundred years or so -- hey, let it ride.

Catholics tend to be adaptable to circumstances. In the diocese of New Mexico and Arizona, the priests tended to have multiple wives and large families with many children. In New Mexico you never saw such happy people and such happy priests. Que sera sera.

When Easterners come here they become astounded by what they perceive as a total lack of rules. Of course we have rules: don't be a jerk and would you please relax.

We have been trying to teach our Gobernador, Herr Arnold, how to relax for several years now. But because he is Austrian, which is very much like a a German or a New Yorker, it is difficult. But Austrians are also very much like Italians who like to feel up the womens under their short little skirts also, so there is some hope for him. We shall see.

Over at the Old Same Place Bar, Suzie lines up the Gaelic coffees on the bar there to warm up the clientel. Since it is always Spring here, many native Californians go about wearing flip-flops and shorts no matter what the temperature. That's because it is always Spring. Pahrump, a Native of yet another kind, comes in wearing mukluks, an heavy fur overcoat and mittens. He looks at the guy sitting there in shorts like the man is insane and then orders a hot toddy.

Right then, the long wail of the throughpassing train ululates across the unsettled waters of the estuary as the locomotive wends its way through the dark and shuttered storefronts of the Jack London Waterfront to settlements on the edge of town, the windswept hillocks of the desert lands, and the high cold steppes of distant Siberia, to places further off and unknown where poor and unwanted Gypsies huddle about their campfires, casting spells in the old Roma language against yet another forced resettlement.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

JANUARY 3, 2010

WELCOME BACK MY FRIENDS TO THE SHOW THAT NEVER ENDS

We start off the year with a little impulsive savoire vivre from Chad. When Life is divided essentially between the Horrible and the Miserable, why be serious?

WELCOME TO THE MACHINE

We'll promise to try to be less pessimistic -- at least at the start. For those of you needing a shot in the arm for inspiration, here is one little fellow who has quite a performing career ahead of him. Here is the famous "Ukulele Kid" doing an original song.

Don't forget to see the one where he covers the Beatles' "Obladi Oblada". On last count, over 10 million people have seen him perform "I'm Yours".

ITS THE STRANGEST FREAK SHOW OF ALL

Our Cultural Attache and Island-Life Event Coordinator juggled tix while working Xmas, Xmas Eve, NYE, and New Years Day at the Crisis Clinic, but managed to get us over to see Berkeley Rep's latest offering on the Roda stage, Aurelia's Oratorio. (All photography by Richard Haughton).

The lights go down, an ostensible telephone conversation in French is heard, the subtext of which is a dispute between a man and a woman. Lights come up and a basic chest of drawers occupies center stage. A drawer opens, a hand emerges, then retreats. For the next ten minutes, various drawers open and close, arms and legs appear, a woman appears to be getting dressed in a black dress and red shoes inside the chest, while also noshing on a plate of pastry, lighting a candle with matches by feel, and drinking a glass of red wine.

Not for a good eight minutes does the head of the charming Victoria Thierree Chaplin emerge and it takes another five minutes for her to pop up, and toss first one leg, then another leg, then improbably yet another leg over the edge of the bureau and finally step out on stage.

For the next sixty minutes, the natural world as we know it upends itself as kites fly people through the air, draperies chase one another and embrace, occasionally swallowing up performers as they climb, taxi's arrive and depart with their fares upside down and a man dances with empty garments that flirt, cavort and -- on one memorable moment -- beat him up before carrying him off stage.

A woman asks the time of a shadow that is casting out the form of a live person on the stage, sets her alarm, and when it goes off, goes to sleep.

She dreams of flying and of hanging out her clothes to be watered and of a man who runs this way and that (performed by an impish Jaime Martinez) calling out the name "Aurelia!" It seems he wants to own and control this woman, leading a wild jerky dance at first, then trying to dress her in costumes after finding only empty dresses and cloaks to dance with. She cannot be controlled or owned; she is elusive, aquatic, arboreal, aerial, and magical.

She also wishes for some maintenance over this world, but as she swings high above the stage, the entire structure shakes, falls to pieces. The very structure of the world falls apart as the curtain frames collapse, forcing her back to the earth.

She tries to control Time in the end, by manipulating clocks to play a tune, but she is turned herself into the symbol of time's passage, when she finds herself dissolving through an hourglass into a pile of sand.

Anguished, the man sweeps up the sand and pours it into an empty dress, but lacking magic, he tosses the dress into a pile of clothes.

From which the woman magically emerges, startling the man, who runs off.

The final piece of this largely wordless "Oratorio" shows the man carrying a lantern and a timepiece, beckoning the woman to follow. She refuses and he exits. She then enters an oval train track, opening a door in her midsection, relays a section of the track so that it seems to pass through her body, and so becomes a portal for the train as it circles about the track and the lights fade.

An "Oratorio" was a piece of music for orchestra, choir and solo singers. It usually told a story from the Old Testament and stems from about the 18th Century in Europe. Unlike conventional opera, an oratorio was sung, not acted, performed usually in the religious setting of a church or a concert hall, and always done in the common language of the composer, instead of high Italian. The most famous oratorio, probably, is Handel's Messiah.

There is quite a lot of music in Chaplin's piece here, which was performed by Aurelia Thierree and directed and concieved by her mother, who is herself quite a piece of work.

Briefly, Victoria Thierree Chaplin is the daughter of actor/comedian Charlie Chaplin and Oona O'Neill Chaplin, and the granddaughter of playwright Eugene O'Neill. Although born in Santa Monica California, the family moved soon after her birth to Switzerland. Together with her husband, Jean Baptiste Thierree, she created a new style of theatre which is generally credited with being the inspiration, if not the very foundation for Cirque du Soleil.

What American audiences see here is an heavily European-inflected set of performances with evocations of circus, vaudeville and the commedia del'arte physicality that Rep audiences have come to experience more and more by way of Les Waters' creative direction. This is very physically demanding theatre requiring split-second timing and the willingness and training to dangle head-down thirty feet above the stage -- among other things -- while making it all appear simply delightful.

It is theatre as Magical World, a world which we are invited to view, but not allowed entirely to enter, for this kind of thing specifies Fourth Wall distance. There is an almost Brechtian detachment of foreign regard in this kind of theatre, which can only be executed by properly trained individuals who,quite frankly, are not like you and me. For all that, the creation of this virtual world of magical upside-down is charming and heartening in that the understanding impossiblity has its limits has a way of setting us free.

One could spend endless hours and words analyzing what it all means, which is a great strength of the production, which Victoria claims is only meant to entertain. Well, one can be entertained by a strip show, a football game, or something engaging like this.

Besides, long time Island-lifers know we have a thing about trains, which provide the evocative closing images and sounds to the Oratorio. "Einsteigen! Tueren schliessen! Vorsicht beim Abfahrt!"

who’s who

Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, Director / Conception

Gerd Walter, Technical Direction / Stage Manager

Roberto Riegert, Lighting Technician

Nicholas Lazzaro, Sound Technician

Tamara Prieto Arroyo, Backstage Support

Antonia Paradiso, Backstage Support

Monika Schwarzl, Backstage Support / Costumes

Laura de Bernadis, Lighting Design

Philippe Lacombe, Lighting Design

Victoria Thierrée Chaplin, Sound Design / Stage Design / Costumes

Jacques Perdiguez, Costumes

Veronique Grand, Costumes

Didier Bendel, Company Management / Administration

Richard Haughton, Photography

La Compagnie du Hanneton, Collaborator

Théâtre L’Avant-Scène, Co-Producer

La Ferme du Buisson Cognac / René Marion, Co-Producer

ArKtype / Thomas O. Kriegsmann, Executive Producer–US Tour

Cast

Aurélia Thierrée

Jaime Martinez

(The two "Chinese Conveyors" are not credited)

THIS ISLAND LIFE

Folks will have noted the February Special Election Sample Ballot features only the one item, the notorious Measure B which seems very likely to go down in flames. A recent canvas of the blocks immediately surrounding the Offices here revealed not one supporter of this questionable initiative, which features a modified version of the original SunCal plan for developing the Point. For unbiased information on this measure, go to www.smartvoter.org or contact karen.butter@ucsf.edu. She is with the League of Women Voters, who will be conducting an information forum at the Library this Thursday.

Notably absent from the Ballot is the recall of the three school Board members, which has been called off after the Board looked into expanding -- not contracting -- the anti-bully curriculum, to include as many representative groups as possible, which effectively defused the claimed reasons for the out-of-state group's reasons for objection.

We await official response to the Island-Life submission for the new curriculum, which goes as follows: No hitting. No name calling. Be nice.

That's it. Short and sweet. For High School our expanded program adds the following: No bullets, man. No bullets.

A man armed with a rifle carjacked a couple in front of the Big 5 Sports at the Southshore Mall on Xmas eve, taking their 2000 Toyota Camry after getting out of a white 4-door sedan. How rude. But because no traffic infractions took place during the theft, the perps got clean away.

Police did a positive ID on remains found in an abandoned warehouse at the Point. The skeletal remains belonged to John Paul Garcia, 26, who has been missing for about three years. A transient hunting for scrap metal discovered the body. There is no suspicion of foul play, but it does appear that Garcia had been living off and on in the warehouse, which has not been used for five years, for some time. No traffic violations are associated with the issue, so the police are treating the case casually. "We'll probably never know how he died," department detective Rod Rummel said.

About 160 DUI people failed to "Avoid the 21" this holiday season, and so although they each one spent a cold night in the drunk tank, an experience that tends to toss a wet blanket on seasonal joviality, at least that many more lived to see another Xmas. Think about it.

SEE YOU NEXT CELTIC NEW YEAR

It's been a moody week on the Island, our hometown set here on the edge of the San Francisco Bay. After a spat of rain over the weekend, looks like we are headed with overcast skies and moderately cool temps while the moisture left by the Holiday storms settles into the soil. Up in the Sierra, we hear that mid teens and decent snowpack have brought back the schussers on the slopes there about Tahoe, which can use the lift fees right about now.

Our friends in Minnesota report rather chill temps of about 20 below, minus wind chill factor, which means you had better wear your mittens out there young fella. And don't stay out too long either.

Further East, they are all shoveling snow drifts like mad -- perhaps because they like to. Down the pike we have reports of the weather front pushing storms up into Canada, where they belong, and down South, where they know how to handle this sort of thing, so its all good for the next week or so.

Precip around the drought-striken Golden State this mid-season is hovering around 100%, so that is yet more good news, even though the budget does not look all that healthy.

The Holidays are over, thank goodness, and we hope you all got what was coming to you. Right now its the depths of Winter, even though the Solstice has passed, and gone unnoticed in many parts of the world mentioned above, even now, the Old Earth is slowly turning her face as she sits in her rocking chair, back towards the light, for the longest night of the year has already passed. The days are getting longer again, and pretty soon things happening beneath that silent snow will make their presence known.

A few problems developed here surrounding the annual Island flyover, so our technician hamsters have been working on the Island Walkabout, which ought to be ready by the end of the month.

Javier has been stumping around in the garden out back, peering down at the raked earth there and the anti-squirrel devices that make sure the little diggers do not go uprooting the glads or the tulips. Every once in a while he gets into a real stare-down with Mr. Peepers who perches up there on the Old Fence with a glare at Javier, who dares shield the delightfully tossable soil where surely something must be there somewhere worth eating.

Mr. Peepers has not forgiven Javier for failing to plant his favorite corn, so wonderfully theft-able. And so delicious. And for spraying the sunflowers with peppermint oil. Like biting into raw habanero, those seedheads!

Mr. Peepers scolds Javier for these and other crimes before scampering along the fence to the redwood tree.

Meanwhile, over at the Old Same Place, Suzie is serving up Fat Tires and doubles as the regular crowd resumes its serious drinking. Usually, during the Holidays, the regulars all vanish in favor of newbies who get seriously drunk only once a year. Its the insult of rank amateurism that does it. So they all buy cases of cheap whiskey from BevMo and retire to their dens of iniquity to wait out the foolishness before returning to the old haunts and their accustomed rails at the bar.

There is a scene in the movie Barfly, where Mickey Roarke turns to Faye Dunaway and asks, "What do you do?" in a classic bar line.

"I drink." The woman responds with perfect surliness.

From then on, it was a match made in such heaven as exists.

So it was, these sorts of folks who crept out from their dens to return to the Old Same Place Bar, somewhat wan and ennervated from lack of alcohol. Things are getting back to normal.

Over at Marlene and Andre's, they are running low on provisions, as the house has been fully populated on account of the bad weather and even Food Bank volunteers need a few days off during the Holiday time.

Yesterday they were all out back burning an old tire and some boards along with the Xmas tree and the tire was melting perfectly over the cinder blocks there and the festive lights Martini had powered by jacking into the Municipal power supply winked merrily all around the yard. This year Martini had built proper converters so that there would be no repetition of blowing out the substation for the entire block as he had done last year, and Jose had made some kind of lemon liquor with rinds and sugar and grain alcohol that had been sitting under the porch for a month, and so a fine time was had by all there around the Yule tire.

As the fire died down, and folks sorta dropped and lay where they fell, the fogs rolled in over the Bay, draping the Golden Gate before hiding it entirely, leaving the Island entirely isolated from any other part of the world.

"Andre," said Marlene, somewhat slurring her words. "D'ya think 2010 will be nearly as f---d up as 2009?"

"It is what it is." Andre said. "Que sera, etc."

Right then the long wail of the throughpassing train ululated across the estuary and the width of the Island as the locomotive wended its way from the bright gantries of the Port through the dark and shuttered Jack London Waterfront to parts unknown.

That's the way it is on the Island. Have a great week.

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