Wrong Planet?
To the presenters of Maitreya’s teachings (see last weeks insert in the Boho), this is a time when we all need guidance. How nice that Maitreya and the Elder Brothers are coming to “evoke in man a desire for change and betterment.” And I’m glad to hear that “men will know afresh the joy of full participation in the realities of Life.” As a woman, I’ll wait for Elders or Wise Ones who speak to humankind. Those who speak to humankind know that exclusive, patriarchal language and social structures are a thing of the past. If a better future is to be created by man with the help of a brotherhood, I’m on the wrong planet.
G. Haley
Sebastopol
The Brilliant Gabe Meline
I read the Bohemian because of the brilliant writing style of Gabe Meline. I was hoping he would write about not the Sly Stone concert itself, but the mess that is Sly himself (“Runnin’ Away,” Oct. 22). Gabe rocked it. I laughed out loud at his description of the events before and after. Beyond cool.
David Petri
Middletown
Don’t Mock Love to Death
“You see, Life on this Earth isn’t separate from any social justice struggle. It’s too late in the game to separate these things. Issues will not be isolated from each other when the Earth is extinguished. . . . In that last gasp all the progressive issues are simply Love, and all the advertisements are simply Love mocked to death.”
—Reverend Billy, What Would Jesus Buy?
Judy Helfand
via email
Corporate Welfare: Socialism
Socialism is alive and well in this country in the form of corporate welfare! In the Corporate States of America, during boom times profits are privatized but losses, naturally, are socialized. Conservatives tout “free markets” as the world’s panacea, but apparently its supposed ability to regulate itself is no match for unmitigated greed of this latest sanctioned Ponzi scheme.
The objective of Republicans for decades has been to emasculate government to the point that what’s left can be drowned in a bathtub. Consider the increasing privatization of the military, of schools through vouchers, attempts to privatize Social Security accounts, Faith Based Initiatives, etc. If we allow them to succeed in their final coup, there will be little left for social, welfare, health and educations programs—which is exactly what the gut-the-government freaks want.
Working folks who simply yearned for a slice of the American dream will unlikely see real assistance from Washington. The fat cats with their $15 million homes in the Hamptons and Greenwich will inevitably bounce back; the vilified poor will just get poorer. Meanwhile, families being foreclosed on should, rather than skulk away from their homes, ignore eviction notices. Band together, contact the media and refuse to leave; local police surely won’t be able to enforce all the foreclosures. And if it does happen, seeing families dragged from their homes and dumped in the street will not play well on national television. And it will give strength to others to resist the greed that has pillaged the heart and soul of our country.
Bill Strubbe
Occidental
&–&–>
First Bite
Mill Valley is a pizza town. Whether solar-fired or wood-burning, helmed by such celebrity chefs as Gordon Drysdale or even of the lowly chain variety, there’s pipin’ hot pie seemingly on every corner of this small village. One of the coziest and least assuming of the bunch is Small Shed Flatbreads, a Slow Food–informed hole-in-the-wall that opened some two years ago and has the comfortable, live-and-let-live community feel of a joint that’s been there for decades.
There’s nothing lofty about Small Shed Flatbreads. Up the street from bustling Throckmorton, its windows are currently adorned with Halloween themes, a bright pink Etch-a-Sketch sits out to entertain hungry children, the art is decidedly local and a community bulletin board is crammed with business cards and posters for a nearby theater. A member of Marin Organic, Small Shed offers pizza dough to go for just $2.50 and will partially bake flatbreads for customers to finish at home in their own ovens.
The staff extends the vibe. When he set our two pints of Lagunitas IPA ($4.50) on the table, our friendly male server approvingly said, “Real women drink beer.” The object of all approval, my gorgeous twenty-something sister accordingly toasted a rainy Mill Valley afternoon to me as real women. The only thing not down-home and familiar about Small Shed is the food, which is made of glistening-fresh, locally sourced ingredients thoughtfully presented at reasonable prices with a Mediterranean emphasis.
Small Shed assures that its flatbreads are “generally enough for one,” so we ordered two, generally having enough for the next day’s lunch. The chard flatbread ($12.50) is set upon the stone-ground “hard red” crust that Small Shed features, a crackly cracker slathered with house-made red sauce and topped with fresh chard, shallots, aged provolone and pancetta. The “Mad River VT” ($13), is loaded with sweet maple fennel sausage, oven-dried tomatoes, caramelized onions, loads of crimini mushrooms and mozzarella and grana cheeses. They’re irregularly cut, not the usual geometry lesson, and served on a two-tier stand so that pulling a piece is a reward both large and small.
Real women need their greens, so we began with the Bolinas Beat ($8.50), a compilation of Star Route Farms’ mixed greens with roasted organic baby beets, a generous slice of Humboldt Fog cheese in a honey balsamic reduction dressing with a chop of fresh pistachios. From the specials board, we treated ourselves to the day’s salad, an arugula tangle in a fresh Pt. Reyes bleu cheese dressing with spiced candied pecan pieces and slices of fuyu persimmon ($8.50).
As it turns out, real women have dessert, particularly if one of them had spent the morning running 12 miles in preparation for an upcoming marathon, and so my sister chose the apple and cherry crisp ($7) with a sweet crunch crust slightly caramelized from heating in the pizza oven, topped with a scoop of Three Twins organic vanilla ice cream. Those of us who labored mightily over the New York Times that very morning had a bite or two, the third spoonful landing a cherry so plop-perfect onto the tongue that I ate no more; I’d had the perfect bite.
There’s no fuss at Small Shed, no lisping sense of foodie superiority; rather, it’s good food from the good ground served with good intentions. In fact, it’s how food used to be and, if such as Small Shed becomes a more familiar sight—no pretensions, no astronomical cost-gouging, no back-slapping self congratulations on pulling a mere carrot from the ground—it’s how we’ll all start eating again. Bring on the pizza!
Small Shed Flatbreads, 17 Madrona Ave., Mill Valley. Open for lunch and dinner daily. 415.383.4200.
Quick-and-dirty dashes through North Bay restaurants. These aren’t your standard “bring five friends and order everything on the menu” dining reviews.
Bikes for All
11.05.08
A bicycle shop stocked by Bay Area donations appears to be thriving in Botswana, says Mike’s Bikes co-owner Ken Martin. Jonmol Bicycle Services opened in July of this year in the Botswanan city of Gabarone and has since provided hundreds of affordable bicycles to the residents of the city, where private car ownership is rare and public transportation is unreliable and expensive. Mike’s Bikes worked with owner Jon ‘Bones’ Moletsane to open the shop in Botswana after seeing the dire need for bicycles in the country.
“This was a pretty unique way for us to put our money where our mouth is,” Martin says. “We spend a lot of time talking here at home about how great bikes are, how they’re great for the environment, great for your health. And we saw in sub-Saharan Africa a place where those benefits could have a hundred times the impact on peoples’ lives than they have here.”
Earlier this year, Martin and Mike’s Bikes co-owner Matt Adams collected 406 bikes in a large donation drive and sent them to Botswana. They traveled to meet and unload the large shipping container and to assist Moletsane in starting his shop. Moletsane was “exactly the kind of guy we wanted,” says Martin. “He was an aspiring African entrepreneur, he loved bikes, he loved the idea of bikes helping his own hometown community and he was willing to open a shop with our help.”
Botswana is unique, Martin says, in that there are bicycle suppliers in the region but no maintenance shops; a bicycle might be discarded for problems as simple as a flat tire or a bent rim. Jonmol Bicycle Services not only repairs and maintains bikes, but sells used bikes to residents at an affordable price, only 300–600 pula, or about $40–$80. Community support in Gabarone has been overwhelmingly positive.
“We hear from Bones every day,” Martin says. “He’s got a big target audience, and people love the idea of bikes. I think they’re something that people would have been on years ago had they had a place to source them. He’s got a big market, a lot of customers.”
Mike’s Bikes is currently looking to open another shop next year in Winhoak, the capital of nearby Namibia, for which Martin predicts another bike donation drive most likely in the spring. “We enjoy the heck out of it,” he enthuses. “It’s very rewarding to leave the country with something operational and self-sustaining like this.”
Today’s the Day
I woke up early this morning, beating the alarm clock, for a very simple, excited reason.
Today is the day that the United States will elect Barack Obama as its next president.
The sun has just barely come up, but I know this with my entire being. I don’t know this because of the polls, which are surely in his favor. I don’t know this because almost every single pundit in the country is predicting an Obama victory.
I know this because I’ve known it since 2004, when I watched Obama’s indescribably brilliant speech from the Democratic National Convention. Like most people who saw the speech, I was floored. And I knew.
Shortly thereafter, the New Yorker ran a posthumous tribute to Richard Avedon. It consisted of an unfinished portfolio by the photographer called “Democracy,” and one of the portraits was of Barack Obama. I ripped it out of the magazine and put it on the refrigerator.
“Who’s that?” my wife asked.
“That’s Barack Obama,” I said—I pronounced his name “barrack” instead of “bar-rock”—”and he’s staying on our refrigerator until he becomes our president.”
For someone who genuinely loves America, the Bush administration has been utter psychological torture. It’s made me so angry, so constantly, that I moved to that rare and horrible place beyond anger. Cynicism is nothing more than the defense mechanism of the truly beleaguered, and apathy nothing more than its illusionist, forever cloaking the unbridled rage deep down inside.
I knew I wasn’t alone. I also knew that Obama had the same effect on others as he had on me; namely, that after watching his speech, I felt my anger slip away to be replaced with hope. After years of despair, I lifted my tired head and smiled to strangers on the street. I felt connected to my fellow man, and I knew that caring for the well-being of others and the direction of this country was not, as previously demonstrated, a cold, dead artifact of the 20th Century.
It’s been a long election cycle, but one in which my faith has never wavered—even as the Bohemian goes to press this very afternoon with a music column of mine that hinges entirely on an Obama victory. But I know.
And yes, it’ll feel strange when this day is over. When the confetti is swept up, and when the Champagne bottles are recycled, and when the real task of getting America back on track is at hand. For now, though, I’m going to ride my bike down to the polling place to cast my vote, sing a few verses of “The Land of Hope and Dreams,” and go to work.
The rest is history.
Farewell to Yma Sumac
She died over the weekend in Los Angeles. A recluse. Fixated on the 1950s.
There’s plenty of great Yma Sumac records to remember her by—Voice of the Xtbay and Legend of the Sun Virgin are her more famous—but to hear Yma Sumac’s 1971 hard rock album Miracles is to know the true melting pot of America: a Peruvian-born singer with a five octave range singing for a heavy metal band arranged by Les Baxter. It’s one of those once-in-a-lifetime albums; there’s nothing else like it, and in a way, Sumac’s piercing wails amount to what Rob Halford and so many other heavy metal singers tried to achieve afterwards.
There’s a pretty good representation of what Yma Sumac was all about in this video. Unfortunately, no videos of the Miracles era seem to exist online, so I dug out my copy of the LP for your listening, uh, “pleasure.” Here’s the first song, “Remember”:
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Petaluma Says No on 8
For the past four days, a group of people have gathered outside the Republican Headquarters on East Washington Street in Petaluma to exercise their right to free speech. But no one’s holding Obama signs—California being a foregone conclusion in the Presidential race—no, the entire focus is on Proposition 8, which, if passed, would amend the California constitution to ban same-sex marriage.
On Wednesday afternoon, reaction to those carrying No on 8 signs was mixed. Shortly after the assembly began, a woman from inside the Republican Headquarters looked out the window, gave the middle finger, and then turned around to bend over and shake her posterior.
Later, more volunteers emerged from the Republican Headquarters, where Yes on 8 signs were displayed in the window and on the lawn. One told the crowd to get jobs, saying that she didn’t want to “pay for your food, or your welfare.” Another one emerged with a Yes on 8 sign and quoted Bible scriptures, claiming rather strangely at one point that people don’t die in wars. Another asserted that she thought same-sex couples should have the same rights as heterosexual couples, but didn’t think it was a good idea to redefine the word “marriage.”
More people showed up. One of the demonstrators, Eva Gangale, a mother with a small infant, walked across the crosswalk at E. Washington Street holding a No on 8 sign to join the crowd. A car drove by, and the driver yelled out the window. “Your kid’s gonna grow up to be a faggot,” he said.
And yet most of the passing drivers honked, waved and gave thumbs up. Several leaned out their windows to say thank you. A passing pedestrian, who explained that he had an hour to kill before an appointment, asked if there were any extra signs; he picked one up and joined the gathering.
Still more demonstrators arrived, almost spontaneously: an Iraq veteran, Arthur Wallis, came to voice his support. He held a sign that said: “Vet. Straight. No on 8,” and wore his military uniform. When a Republican volunteer walked up and asked him, “Are you a veteran, or are you just wearing that?” he explained that yes, he was in fact an veteran of the Iraq War.
A mother passing on the street, Paulette Carlés, saw the crowd and approached with her two children, Isabel and Gabe. She wore a yellow t-shirt which endorsed the reading of books. She had gotten increasingly flustered with the numerous Yes on 8 signs posted around town, and was glad to see that she wasn’t alone.
She excitedly called her husband, who was home making dinner. He stopped what he was doing, drove down, and held a sign too.
It’s not too late to donate to No on 8.More photos by Elizabeth Seward below.
Everybody is a Star
Even Joe the Plumber, who just announced he’s signing a recording deal with Aaron Tippin. Can he sing his way out of a paper bag? No. Can he play guitar? No. No big deal. Nothing ProTools can’t fix.
I can see it now. The album, called Unlicensed to Ill, will feature such songs as “Lyin’ to Obama In Order to Not Really Prove a Point,” “Wow, I’m an Expert on Israel All of a Sudden,” “Maybe I’ll Make Over $250,000 From This Song,” “Back Taxes Suck and I Hate Payin’ Em,” and “Don’t Take My Word For It, But Wait, Actually, Maybe You Should, Even Though I Don’t Know Anything, So Don’t Ask Me Who I’m Voting For, It’s Private, Wait a Minute, Where Are You Going, Don’t Go Anywhere, I’m Gonna Endorse McCain, as if That’s News to Anyone Who Has Half a Brain and Hasn’t Figured Out That I Was Hella Lying and Being Antagonizing to Obama All Along, Please Keep Me in the Spotlight, Please, So I Don’t Have to Actually Get My Plumber’s License.”
Southwest Virginia Speaks Up
Comments received this morning—all from the same IP address, all from Yahoo accounts—on the City Sound Inertia post “Ralph Stanley for Obama”:
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wes p | xr*****@***oo.com | IP: 72.236.101.166 | Oct 29, 7:45 AM
I would like to make known my deep disappointment with Mr Stanley reguarding his blind support for Barack Obama. When one looks at Senator Obama’s voting record and his direction for America, it is obvious that he does not have Southwest VA’s best interest in mind. There are a lot of small business owners in VA that are going to be severly affected by Mr Obama’s tax plan. His radical associations (even with known domestic terrorists) and others raise serious questions about his loyalty. I have been a long time fan of Ralph Stanley’s music, however his recent claim that Obama will be good for the people of SW VA, in my opinion shows poor judgement. I think that Mr Stanley’s judgement and reputation will be severly damaged if Obama is elected.
Annissa Cauble | ca************@***oo.com | IP: 72.236.101.166 | Oct 29, 8:00 AM
I cannot believe as a good southern boy you would be in support on Barack Obama!!!!! John Mccain has served his country in all capacities and has weathered many storms.. Shame on YOU!!!!I will never listen to your music AGAIN!!! Barack Obama’s tax plan will not benefit VA and he does not have anyone’s best interest in mind except his own and the wealthy! I think you have “LOST YOUR MARBLES” not to mention your judgement is impaired.
Kim Duckworth | kl*****@***oo.com | IP: 72.236.101.166 | Oct 29, 8:07 AM
I have to say I was disapointed when I heard RS was a supporter of Obama. You should know better. What are you thinking, this could hurt your repatation. I am a firm beleiver in the good ol boy system. OBAMA – BADIN YOU BETTER BE CAREFUL!!!!!
OSAMA – BINLADIN
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This is what it’s come to for these morons—creating multiple Yahoo addresses in order to leave comments on some tiny, inconsequential music blog in California. The factual, logical and grammatical failures on display here only highlight the obvious fact that those trying to fight Obama with racism are entirely at the end of their rope. A desperate act for a truly desperate campaign.
Feel free to add your comment here.
Panic Rooms
The subject matter of What Just Happened? is perhaps insignificant—a week in the life of a tanking movie producer. But something else happens along the way. Robert De Niro, soulfully underplaying what could have been a broad showbiz farce, makes you care about the producer’s unhappiness. We’ve had Hollywood satires, but has there been a movie about a player at this terminal stage before? Way past the point of taking visual pleasure in film, De Niro’s Ben is just trying to stay afloat. He has no idea whether a movie is good or not anymore.
Director Barry Levinson sketches out the two films that bookend Ben’s week. Ben produced them, but that doesn’t mean he has to think they’re any good. We see the first one, Fiercely, at a sneak preview in Orange County. The bleak little signs with their film titles sticking out above the doors to the multiplex are seen from gurney-eye view, as if glimpsed by a patient rolling to an operating room.
The film, a Sean Penn crime melodrama with a we-are-all-Jesus finale, seems atrocious enough. Penn, in hit-man suit, catches a bullet atop a mountainous coal heap and barrel-rolls down. His faithful pit bull watches as Penn croaks, “Forgive them, Father, they know not what they do.” And then the director breaks a movie rule of such antiquity that the audience is in immediate revolt: The dog gets it, too.
The studio head (Catherine Keener) has the brittle patience of a kindergarten teacher at 2:55pm. If the director Jeremy (Michael Wincott, a weeping tattooed wreck in mid-tantrum) cuts out the bit with the dog getting its brains blown out, maybe they’ll only lose $10 million. Convincing the director to take one for the team, Ben’s other task is to ready a film rolling on Friday. The star, Bruce Willis (as in, Bruce Willis), has gained some pounds and put on a bushy beard, and looks more or less like Jeff Bridges in Iron Man. He, too, is in mid-tantrum, roaring at anyone daring to make him shave or reduce.
Levinson keeps De Niro in constant motion and engaged in Bluetooth conversation, and the surface of the movie intrigues, as a montage of L.A. freeways, a close-up of the mysterious machinery of a luxury car’s headlight as it engages and Ennio Morricone’s “Man with a Harmonica” from Once Upon a Time in the West swirl around Ben on his errands. Ben never comes to rest, not to chat with his second ex (Robin Penn Wright) or with his 17-year-old daughter (Kristen Stewart), from whom he’s becoming estranged.
What Just Happened? is a comedy because that’s the only kind of movie you could call it. Watching an ambitious scriptwriter texting a message at a funeral can make you laugh, but it’s not an intrinsically funny situation; if you actually saw it happen in Westwood, would you really be shocked? The male actors, made to look small and vulnerable, show a lot of their flesh: the sixty-ish De Niro looks fit, though with a small flap of belly (as he downward-dogs it in a yoga pose), and John Turturro paces in fancy drawstring European underwear as he moans like a moose in mid-panic attack on the phone.
The action is fictionalized from Art Linson’s book (in real life, it was Alec Baldwin who turned up for a film looking like Grizzly Adams and who had to be asked to shave). The situations could, ultimately be about any panicky men in any industry, and that’s what makes it stick.
‘What Just Happened?’ opens Friday, Oct. 31, at the Rialto Lakeside Cinemas. 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. 707.525.4840.
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Oh, What a Night
The envelopes have been ripped, the speeches have been given, the Champagne poured, and it’s time to announce the winners of the 2008 North Bay Music Awards in print!
At a swingin’ affair out at the Hopmonk Tavern in Sebastopol Oct. 22, a bustling crowd filled the room as DJ Wordlow got things moving on the turntables with his stack of rare soul 45s. Onstage, Volker Strifler warmed up by playing guitar solos over Spider Harrison’s deep funk classic “Beautiful Day.” Against the wall, artists Jared Powell and Joe Leonard put the starting touches on a pair of 5-by-6-foot street-art murals, and the crowd, fresh from the Boho Awards party out in the beer garden, bought beers and boogied down. And all of this before the awards even began!
Between blocks of award announcements, we were extremely lucky to have the Volker Strifler Band, Free Peoples, Not to Reason Why and Sonicbloom all grace the stage with short, sharp sets as excellent and varied as the awards categories themselves. Bill Bowker and Brian Griffith from KRSH 95.9-FM served as special guest presenters, keeping the suspense strong until the grand reveal, and winners were given framed “gold” record awards along with the opportunity to deliver acceptance speeches.
Throughout the evening, special moments kept occurring. At the last minute, Spencer Burrows from Frobeck sat in with Volker Strifler, sight unseen, to fill in on keyboards. Bill Bowker gave gracious thanks to the listeners who’ve supported local radio from the days he broadcasted from a little shack at Santa Rosa’s KVRE. A member of Sonicbloom, in an acceptance speech, thanked “my mom, even though she’s not here, I gotta thank my mom,” alongside shout-outs to Ol’ Dirty Bastard and Stevie Wonder. The members of Dgiin amiably argued about who got to keep the award, and Jason Bodlovich, himself nominated in the jazz category, admitted that he had voted for winner Mel Graves.
Special thanks go out to the Hopmonk Tavern for having us; to all the bands who performed, especially to Not to Reason Why for showing up early and supplying the backline; to Jared Powell and Joe Leonard of Black Saints tattoo and Monkey Wrench tattoo for painting an amazing mural; to DJ Wordlow for keeping it funky; to Bill Bowker and Brian Griffith from the KRSH for rockin’ the mic; and especially to you, the readers and supporters of local music who turned out and made it real. Over 2,000 of you voted—a record, and a testament to the immense passion you have for your music community.
Without further ado, turn the page for the 2008 NORBAY winners!
Blues / R&B / Funk
Eugene Huggins
Maria Muldaur
Roy Rogers
Volker Strifler
Vinyl
Winner: Maria Muldaur
Country / Americana
Buckshot Boys
Free Peoples
Poor Man’s Whiskey
Stiff Dead Cat
Trailer Park Rangers
Winner: Free Peoples
Dance / DJ
DJ Amen
DJ Rob Cervantes
DJ Dragonfly
DJ Jacques
DJ Malarkey
Winner: DJ Dragonfly
Folk / Acoustic
Audrey Auld Mezera
Joni Davis
Nina Gerber
Moss Henry
Solid Air
Winner: Nina Gerber
Hip-Hop
Cavity
Latin Hyper
Shaya
Sonicbloom
Truthlive
Winner: Sonicbloom
Jazz
Jason Bodlovich
Mel Graves
Jackie Ryan
Larry Vukovich
Wesla Whitfield
Winner: Mel Graves
Indie Rock / Punk
The Crux
Goodriddler
Litany for the Whale
The New Trust
Not to Reason Why
Winner: The Crux
Rock
5 A.M.
Aftertayst
Frobeck
The Spindles
The Thugz
Winner: Frobeck
World
Dgiin
Markus James
Luna Angel
Tom Rigney
Sol Horizon
Winner: Dgiin
Letters to the Editor
Bikes for All
Today’s the Day
Farewell to Yma Sumac
Petaluma Says No on 8
Everybody is a Star
Southwest Virginia Speaks Up
Panic Rooms
Oh, What a Night
