Bay Area Pop Star Designs Custom Ukulele with Kala Brand Music

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Bay Area Pop Star Designs Custom Ukulele with Kala Brand Music

A frontrunner in the ukulele industry for more than 15 years, Petaluma-based instrument manufacturer Kala Brand Music has released untold numbers of ukuleles and other music makers, but none look like the forthcoming Signature Concert Ukulele designed by Bay Area artist mxmtoon.

Born and raised in Oakland, self-made singer-songwriter mxmtoon—who also goes by Maia­—catapulted to the forefront of the indie-pop sphere with her 2018 self-recorded and self-released EP plum blossom.

An artist who specializes in the ukulele, mxmtoon teamed with Kala and created a celestially inspired, hand-drawn design that is etched into the instrument’s wood body.

“The cornerstone of what an artist collaboration is for us as a ukulele manufacturer is identifying with the artist what they would like to see out there in the world,” says Joe DeMars, artist relations coordinator at Kala.

While Kala works closely with the artists to achieve their vision for these collaborations, DeMars notes that mxmtoon approached the project with a specific creative drive.

“She had such a clear view right away of what she wanted this instrument to look like,” DeMars says. “It blew us away, the design she came up with. We don’t have anything like that.”

On the instrument construction side, Kala designed the model based on one of its flagship designs that mxmtoon regularly plays.

“We had that opportunity to combine a sound and a feel that we knew that she liked with a design that was very new and personal to her,” DeMars says.

Now reaching an audience of over 6 million monthly Spotify listeners, mxmtoon often gets personal in her lo-fi pop music with candid, introspective and witty lyrics set over ukulele chords.

“One thing that I’ve continuously tried to remind myself of as I’ve gotten older is the importance of a cycle,” mxmtoon writes in a statement. “That no matter how hectic life may be, the one thing that ties everything together is that the sun will rise and fall and the moon will follow each day. With my signature ukulele, I wanted that message to be represented in the engravings! I think oftentimes as creatives we can be very hard on ourselves when we aren’t able to produce art at a constant rate. So, I designed this ukulele in hopes of reminding people that even if one day is difficult, there is always the next.”

“Maia is a person who developed her ability to express her thoughts and emotions though the ukulele,” DeMars says. “What we were most hoping to accomplish with her and this instrument is developing something that is an accessible piece of inspiration for somebody to start their own personal journey with music.”

The mxmtoon Signature Concert Ukulele is listed at $99.99 and available for pre-order at Kalabrand.com.

Napa County is in the Red Tier. What can Reopen?

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Napa County is in the Red Tier. What can Reopen?

Coronavirus cases have continued to recede. President Joe Biden said that there will be enough vaccine available for all U.S. adults by the end of May, sooner than previously expected, because of a deal with Johnson & Johnson to boost supply. More than 9 million shots have already been administered in California.

This time, it seems, the reopening of California will be different. Gradual, yes—California, as Gov. Gavin Newsom pointedly noted, isn’t Texas—but lasting. Really.

At least, that’s how officials across the state are framing the progress in the past couple of days.

On Tuesday, state public health officials said that seven counties were moving from the state’s most stringent purple tier to the second most restrictive red tier. It was the most significant easing of restrictions since state leaders abruptly announced that they were lifting stay-at-home orders meant as a kind of “emergency brake” to halt what spiraled into the state’s deadliest surge.

“The fact that we’re moving into new tiers, the fact that we’ve provided billions of dollars in relief checks, speaks for itself,” Newsom, speaking in Palo Alto, said Tuesday at another news conference aimed at drumming up excitement for a long-negotiated deal to bring students back to classrooms after a year of distance learning. (He said later that he planned to sign the bill Friday.)

“Come August, September, we’ll be in a position to safely reopen not only our schools but the vast majority of business sectors as well,” he said.

San Francisco’s mayor, London Breed, told residents in a news conference Tuesday to get in the habit of putting their masks back on as they move about indoor restaurants.

“Because, ultimately, we’re in the red right now,” she said, “but in just a few weeks, we’ll probably, most likely be in the orange.”

Even Barbara Ferrer, director of public health for Los Angeles County — known for her dire warnings as Los Angeles became the epicenter of the winter crisis — struck a somewhat optimistic tone Tuesday in her office’s update.

“LA County is very close to meeting the metric thresholds for the less restrictive red tier,” she said in a statement.

But perhaps you’ve gotten a little fuzzy about what this all means. Here are the answers to your questions:

Which counties are in the red tier now? And how can I find out which tier my county falls under?

There are 16 counties now in the red tier: Del Norte, Modoc, Humboldt, Trinity, Shasta, Lassen, Plumas, Marin, Napa, Yolo, El Dorado, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara, Mariposa and San Luis Obispo.

Two counties are in the even less restrictive orange tier — Sierra and Alpine — and the rest, including most of the state’s most populous counties, are still in the purple tier, as of Tuesday.

What is allowed in the red tier?

The most significant difference between the purple and red tiers is that in the red tier, restaurants, museums and movie theaters can reopen indoors, at 25 percent capacity or 100 people — whichever is fewer. Gyms can reopen indoors at 10 percent capacity. (In the purple tier, all of those are allowed to operate outdoors only.)

Bars and breweries — businesses that serve alcohol but not food — must remain closed. In both the purple and red tiers, though, wineries can operate outdoors only.

In the purple tier, stores and shopping malls could be open indoors at 25 percent capacity; in the red tier, that can increase to 50 percent.

In the red tier, indoor gatherings are strongly discouraged but allowed, with a maximum of three households.

And masks are still required when you’re not eating or drinking.

What about in the orange and yellow tiers?

Many of the aforementioned places can open indoors at higher capacity, including restaurants, which can be open at half capacity. In the orange tier, bars can reopen outdoors, and smaller amusement parks can also open at 25 percent capacity.

How quickly could even more restrictions be lifted?

Counties fall into different tiers based on their average numbers of new cases per 100,000 residents and their test positivity rates, with some adjustments, so new cases must continue to fall. Officials in each county can opt to keep in place stricter rules than the state allows, as Los Angeles County has done in the past, but given the continuing vaccine rollout—confusing though it may be—that seems less likely now.

While just about 13 percent of the state’s population lives in a county that’s been able to move out of the purple tier, Newsom on Monday hinted that the balance could shift significantly “in the next few weeks.” He said the state was monitoring roughly 17 counties that could have restrictions lifted as early as next week.

Copyright 2021 The New York Times Company

Cultivator Chris Hayes

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Cultivator Chris Hayes

California Dreaming

Chris Hayes was a Californian before he came to California, though he didn’t really know it. His 19th-century counterparts arrived from the four corners of the world to pan for gold.

“I came for the San Francisco music scene,” he tells me on an overcast day when the earth is green and when real weeds, not weed, are growing like crazy. Edible wild mushrooms blanket the ground. Hayes says, “I’ve spent more than half my life in California, and while I still have traces of a New England accent I’m now 100 percent Californian.”

Hayes grew his first cannabis plants when he was 13 in rural Connecticut, where his family had lived for hundreds of years. He fished in the Farmington River near the Connecticut River, worked in corn fields, harvested melons and pumpkins, and drove a tractor before he drove a car. “I loaded trucks with bushells full of corn,” he tells me.

Hayes has cultivated marijuana in more parts of Sonoma County than any other grower I‘ve ever met. He’s grown indoors and outdoors, in greenhouses and in natural sunlight, in the hills outside Healdsburg and in Santa Rosa, Occidental and Glen Ellen.

Hayes has also cultivated weed in Placer County, Nevada County and Humboldt County. “I have seen nearly all the many different microclimates in Norcal,” he says. Of course, he makes compost and compost tea, cultivates cover crops and grows beneficial plants like marigolds that attract harmful insects.

Later this year, he will invite the cows on the land to eat the cover crop and then add their manure to his compost pile. Naturally, he uses water efficiently and applies organic fertilizers to the soil. “Best practices” is his mantra. He’s learned from the best local biodynamic farmers, including Mike Benziger and Erich Pearson.

Last year he harvested plants that had a whopping 32 percent THC. This year for the first time, at the SPARC garden on Trinity Road, he will put the plants in the ground and not cultivate in containers. “You gotta take what Mother Nature gives you,” Hayes tells me. “That means using the sun, the air, the water and the ground itself.”

Hayes doesn’t like to badmouth other companies and individuals in the cannabiz, though he has seen greed take over in some places and at some times. During the 25 years he has grown cannabis in California he has never been raided or busted.

“I’ve been lucky,” he tells me, though he also reminds me that “in Humboldt, where families turned to marijuana after logging and mining went south, police raids were devastating.” Does Hayes smoke? “Not during the day, but in the evening and when it’s appropriate.”

Jonah Raskin is the author of “Marijuanaland: Dispatches from an American War.”

Ferlinghetti Spaghetti

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Ferlinghetti Spaghetti

A poet prevails

As regards the recent passing of poet, playwright and Beat publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, exiting at three digits still seems untimely for such a towering figure. This column will not be your encomium du jour—better writers have better remembrances of this particular cartographer of the American soul. But here are mine—all five. 

Please note, I fully accede these are not the literary highlights and homilies my colleagues managed in the week since Ferlinghetti’s death at 101. Upon review, I realize now my reveries read more like the diary of a literary stalker and the canny old man who outwitted him at every turn.

1. Justin S. and I ditch a day during our sophomore year in high school, circa 1988, and catch a Golden Gate Transit bus (80) bus to San Francisco. We find our way to North Beach and the citadel of City Lights Booksellers. Our quest? Find Ferlinghetti. At the cash register is a bearded man who resembles the mugshot on the back of his books. We ask if he’s Ferlinghetti. He says, “No.”

2. San Francisco, the Palace of Fine Arts, a double feature of Michaelangelo Antonioni’s Blow Up and Zabriskie Point—the director is present … so is Ferlinghetti. I conspire to meet him and ingeniously ask him for a light for a cigarette. He says he doesn’t smoke.

3. College days. I’m living in North Beach Adjacent, a.k.a. Russian Hill. I’m hovering around the poetry section of City Lights, which has been moved upstairs near the offices, the door to which is open. Ferlinghetti is in view. I approach, but so does another young literary type. He gets his words in first, but in his haste fumbles with “Do you have a first edition ‘Howl?’” Ferlinghetti replies, “This isn’t a used bookstore.” I’m inwardly glad it wasn’t me who took the hit—close one.

4. North Beach, around New Year’s, mid-’90s. I spy Ferlinghetti crossing the street at Columbus and Broadway. I approach, tape recorder in hand, and ask him for a poem for the new year. He says, “Ferlinghetti Spaghetti.” Well played.

5. I’m a small-town newspaperman asked to emcee a poetry reading at the Phoenix Theater in Petaluma. The star on the bill is Ferlinghetti. Backstage, I busy myself pouring wine for the other poets after having ceremoniously opened the bottle onstage framed as a performance piece I dub “The Poet’s Inspiration.” The gag was almost as cheap as the wine. I’m summoned by a woman who says Ferlinghetti would like to meet me. He says something approving of my “performance piece.” I follow with a pour from the bottle.

“A poet is born

A poet dies

And all that lies between

is us”

—Lawrence Ferlinghetti, “An Elegy On The Death Of Kenneth Patchen”

Daedalus Howell is at DaedalusHowell.com.

Two Centenarian Marin Groups Team Up for Heroic Art Show

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Two Centenarian Marin Groups Team Up for Heroic Art Show

In 1919, Marin County nonprofit organization Cedars became the first residential school in the Western United States for people with developmental disabilities.

This year, the 101-year-old organization marks a new milestone—its first collaborative art exhibition with high school art students at The Branson School in Ross. This month, the two groups unveil “Heroes and Heroines,” which opens on March 4 online and at Artist Within – A Cedars Gallery, located in downtown San Anselmo.

“If you’re familiar with Cedars, you know that we support almost 200 individuals with developmental disabilities,” says Jeanne Lipson, director of development at Cedars. “One hundred of them live in our residences, and another hundred come to our day programs.”

The Cedars Fine Art Studios is a day program in which participants create portfolios of work—including paintings, jewelry and more—that sells in the San Anselmo gallery. The Cedars Textile Arts Collaborative program also lets individuals show and sell in the gallery. Half of the proceeds from art sales go directly to the Cedars artist who created the piece.

The Branson School—which opened in Ross in 1916—and Cedars have been neighbors for more than 100 years and are connected through a “Best Buddies” program that brings together Cedars residents and Branson School students through activities including karaoke nights and basketball games.

“It’s such a rich partnership,” Lipson says. “We’re so grateful to Branson for how they’ve embraced working with us.”

For the upcoming “Heroes and Heroines” exhibit, individuals from Cedars art programs and students from the Branson School’s art department matched up over Zoom—due to the pandemic—to discuss their heroes, who ranged from Ruth Bader Ginsburg and healthcare workers to the Greek goddess Artemis and Spider-Man. From there, artists from both groups created paintings or drawings based on those discussions.

“Inner Face,” by Cedars resident Milton Miskel, displays as part of the upcoming ‘Heroes and Heroines’ exhibit in downtown San Anselmo. Image courtesy Cedars.

Beginning March 4, the complete “Heroes and Heroines” exhibit will show online, and curators from Cedars will also select pieces from both Cedars artists and Branson School students to be hung at Artist Within – A Cedars Gallery.

“My art students have been able to make those important connections with the Cedars artists, as well as learn from people who are as passionate about art as they are,” Allyson Seal, art teacher at the Branson School, says in a statement. “It’s been interesting to see how both sides have approached the project; some very differently and others in a similar way.”

“Everything we do [at Cedars] is about creating inclusion and income opportunities for our artists,” Lipson says. “But, really, the larger part of our mission is about destigmatizing differences and recognizing that every person has dignity and value and has something to add. This [exhibit] is going a long way to breaking down those barriers and showing how we all have heroes and heroines.”

“Heroes and Heroines” opens on Thursday, March 4, online and at Artist Within ­– A Cedars Gallery, 603 San Anselmo Ave., San Anselmo. 415.454.2568. Cedarslife.org/Facebook.com/AWSanAnselmo.

Jesse Brewster Sings From the Heart on New Record

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Jesse Brewster Sings From the Heart on New Record

Seasoned North Bay singer-songwriter Jesse Brewster always looked up to his older brother Jim.

“After high school, I wasn’t driven towards any goal, but I was playing guitar,” Brewster says. “He was a big encourager of what I was doing, so I probably wouldn’t be doing it without him.”

When Jim passed away from Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) when he was 29 and Jesse was 23, the younger Brewster began writing lyrics about the experience, and soon stepped out of the rock & roll–sideman role into that of a solo artist.

Brewster released his first record in 2004, and he’s been going strong ever since. This month, Brewster releases his fifth album, The Lonely Pines, which features 10 tracks of folk- and roots-rock storytelling songs.

The Lonely Pines will be available online and on vinyl on March 5.

Throughout his songwriting career, Brewster has instilled autobiographical lyrics into his character-driven storytelling. In addition to songs inspired by his sibling, Brewster chronicles his own battle with the same disease; including how he received a life-saving kidney transplant from his wife six years ago.

The Lonely Pines is a continuation of that trend, with songs that musically range from acoustic folk to rollicking Americana while lyrically examining Brewster’s past, present and thoughts on the future.

“I’m always trying to get something out there that is cohesive, and the songs luckily were coming,” he says. “So, I followed that vein.”

Some tracks on the album depart from the Americana aesthetic, including the glam rock-infused “Follow It Down,” the saloon song “Bitter Pill” and the Celtic folk-inspired “Amber Kinney.”

“There’s many songs I could have put on the record, but these ones seemed to be ones that all had at least a little bit to do with each other,” he says.

Brewster was still recording the album when the pandemic hit in early 2020, and he was forced to finish the album’s final three tracks in his home studio, playing nearly every instrument himself.

Among those tracks is the song “Close to Home,” a roots-rocker filled with vocal harmonies and jangling guitar riffs, that was written in the first days of Covid-related isolation.

“It’s super-reflective of what everybody was going through in those first days of the pandemic and you didn’t know what was going to happen,” Brewster says.

Originally, “Close to Home” was not going to appear on The Lonely Pines, as it was composed for a grant project.

“You had to write a song, record it, make a video and you could get this grant,” Brewster says. “It’s always fun to be given an assignment, it forces your hand and it’s a good [songwriting] exercise for sure.”

Now a year into isolation, Brewster­—who is immunocompromised due to PKD­—is not exactly itching to get back on the road, though he is not satisfied with simply streaming his concerts on social media, either.

“I want performances to be an event, not just an expectation,” he says. “What I want to be doing and what I normally would be doing during this time would be getting out there.”

“The Lonely Pines” will be available online and on vinyl on Friday, March 5. Jessebrewster.com.

Letters to the Editor: Considering the Cost of the Death Penalty

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Letters to the Editor: Considering the Cost of the Death Penalty

I generally agree with David Dozier’s comments about the death penalty (Open Mic, Feb. 10). However, like everything else in life it is mostly, but not entirely, a black-and-white issue.

Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Or of Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 young men and then dismembered and cannibalized their bodies. McVeigh was executed. Dahmer was sentenced to 17 consecutive terms of life imprisonment, and was murdered by a fellow prisoner.

Was it wrong to execute McVeigh? Was it right to spare Dahmer the death penalty? For that matter, is life imprisonment cruel and unusual punishment? Unless you’re opposed to one person killing another under any circumstances—even an armed intruder in your home or a soldier on the battlefield—you should acknowledge that the punishment for some murders needs to be assessed on an individual basis.

Stanton Klose, San Rafael

Represent Us

Our democracy grants outsized power to a minority of its people by giving sparsely populated states the same Senate representation as heavily populated states like California. Republicans have been exploiting this inequity for decades and state legislatures in places like Georgia, Texas and Arizona are even now are pushing through voter suppression laws in to create obstacles to voting, mostly affecting people of color and those with little means.

It’s time to fix this and Congress can do so by passing S.1, the For the People Act. S.1 addresses corruption, buying elections, election security, expanding voting rights and more. It’s time to redistribute power throughout this great Country by giving everyone a voice, regardless of who they are, where they live and what their means. The House has already passed its version of this act, now the Senate must pass S.1, the For the People Act, to make things right for our democracy and our Country.

Susan Stanger, Mill Valley

Open Mic: Finding Wings Within Uncertainty

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Open Mic: Finding Wings Within Uncertainty

There’s so much to feel insecure about in my 75th year. I’m no stranger to mishap. But I can either stay rooted in fear about what’s coming, dwell on past conditioning—or let go and surrender into the unknown with all the faith I can muster.

For sure, living in fear, trying to control, manipulate or hang on to whatever one has—for dear life—is very understandable. It’s built right into our basic survival instinct. But it’s reactionary. It stifles creativity and adaptive choices. It makes our angels have to work harder, getting around a sucky feeling of dread. On the other hand? Casting the burden, letting go of what I can’t control with an intention to be well delivers evidence of a reliable, invisible support system: How liberating!

Mystics, quantum physicists, metaphysicians and body-mind scientists alike advise that to the degree we relax identifying with egoic habits, magic happens instead. Our needs seem to be met each day, a day at a time. It feels miraculous to me. The more present I am, living in this moment fully, I feel so alive-healthy. There’s freedom to enjoy states of peace and calm or youthful, robust play. The more I find things to appreciate, the more experiences happen that feel really good.

Of course, the opposite is true, too. Anxiety, worry, doubt and fear bring more experiences that feel like that “reality.” The survival system kicks into fight, flee or freeze. We may become hypervigilant in trying to ward off more danger. If there IS actual present danger, that reflexive system might save my butt; I need it! But that’s different from imagining it, unconsciously keeping myself down.

The late philosopher/author Alan Watts told us there was a “wisdom of insecurity,” just as Dr. Deepak Chopra today speaks about a “wisdom of uncertainty.” Rather than allowing fears to press down on my soul wings, I am letting life be my meditation, allowing love to give me flight. Wisdom whispers, “Fully engage, be here now with an open heart and mind. Marvel in the mystery and grace of being alive.”

Marcia Singer, MSW, is a counselor, healer, mindfulness meditation teacher and director of the Love Arts Foundation in Santa Rosa. To have your topical essay considered for publication, write to us at op*****@******an.com.

State Officials Announce $6.6B Deal to Reopen Schools Statewide

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State Officials Announce $6.6B Deal to Reopen Schools Statewide

California Gov. Gavin Newsom and other state officials announced a deal on a $6.6 billion legislative package Monday that would support the statewide reopening of grades K-6 by the end of the month and grades 7-12 in early April. 

The package includes $2 billion in grants to support safety measures for students and educators returning to in-person classes, including personal protection equipment, improvements to classroom ventilation and regular coronavirus testing.

The remaining $4.6 billion would fund voluntary learning expansions, including extending the school year into the summer, tutoring to make up for learning lost amid the pandemic and mental health services for students. 

State legislators are expected to vote on the deal by the end of the week, according to Newsom. 

“So many of our kids and caregivers are celebrating this day because we all are united around coming back safely into the schools and helping with the socio-emotional supports that our kids so desperately need,” Newsom said. 

The reopening plan comes after months of haggling between officials in the Newsom administration, state legislators and teachers’ unions over details like required vaccinations and a reopening timeline that all sides agree is safe.

While the package does not require the vaccination of teachers before a school can reopen, Newsom underscored the state’s vaccine prioritization for teachers that began Monday, reserving 10 percent of the weekly vaccine shipments coming into the state for K-12 educators and child care workers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration have yet to deem the three vaccines currently available as safe for children under the age of 16, although modified versions of the vaccines may be available for children later this year.

However, Newsom was noncommittal about adding the vaccine to the list of those required for public school students when it becomes available, noting that any such decision will be guided by the state’s vaccine safety advisory group when the time comes. 

The deal also stops short of mandating that all grades return to in-person classes across the state, instead tying those reopenings to state funding as an incentive. 

The deal requires in-person instruction at public schools to resume for K-2 students and all “high-needs” students in grades K-12—including English language learners, students in the foster care system and unhoused students—by the end of March.

Schools that do not comply would lose 1 percent of their funding per day if they are not open by then. 

Once a county is in the red tier of the state’s pandemic reopening system, schools would risk the same penalty if they do not offer in-person instruction to all elementary grade students and students in at least one middle or high school grade level.

Similar to the process through which the state allowed schools to reopen during last summer and fall’s swoon in cases, schools will also be required to submit detailed reopening plans to state officials and report their reopening status via the state’s website.

Schools in 35 of the state’s 58 counties have already resumed in-person classes in some form, according to the state. The plan announced Monday would incentivize in-person education in some form regardless of a county’s tier level.

“We’re not waiting to get out of this purple tier in order to get our kids safely back into in-person instruction,” Newsom said. “That’s what’s so meaningful to me, that we’re not slowing down, we’re now accelerating the pace of reopening.”

California Teachers Association president E. Toby Boyd praised the deal for including the safety measures and vaccine prioritization educators have asked for during negotiations and said the plan gets the state one step closer to schools finally reopening statewide. 

“This pandemic has been difficult and wearing on all of us, and it is going to continue to take all of us to make opening our schools for in-person instruction safe, stable and successful,” Boyd said.

Bay Area officials similarly praised the plan for reopening schools over the next six weeks.

“Our kids need to safely return to the classroom,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a Twitter post. “We’re reviewing this plan’s details but I want to thank (Newsom) on moving this forward.”

Breed and other San Francisco officials have butted heads with the San Francisco Unified School District in recent weeks for the district’s failure to begin reopening schools.

While the district released its latest proposal last week to reopen elementary schools, Superintendent Vincent Matthews said in a statement Monday that the state’s package will not change its reopening plans, which still do not include a tentative date to reopen.

“Though I wish it could, the governor’s announcement does not change our timeline because there are still many steps we need to take to get there and many of those aren’t able to be expedited, even with financial incentives,” Matthews said. “Make no mistake, we share the urgency to offer in-person instruction to as many students as soon as possible and more resources will help.”

The Education Trust-West, an Oakland-based nonprofit education advocacy group, framed the plan as the means to an end, arguing that simply returning the state’s education system to its pre-pandemic state will not be good enough for underprivileged students.

A poll that the group released last week of 600 parents across the state found that nearly 75 percent of parents with children age 5 and younger are concerned about their child’s education and development due to the pandemic.

The poll also found that low-income parents and parents of color were particularly affected by the pandemic-induced losses of child care and in-person classes.

“Parents are increasingly worried about the academic, social, and emotional development their students are missing through distance learning–and with good reason. … (S)chools will need to work with parents and community partners like never before to generate creative, engaging, fun learning experiences while tending to students’ social, emotional and mental health needs,” Education Trust-West executive director Dr. Elisha Smith Arrillaga said in a statement. 

State legislators representing the Bay Area were optimistic about the plan and the safe reopening of the region’s schools in the coming weeks. 

“I am hopeful that this plan will address the learning loss that students have experienced without in-person instruction, while ensuring that our educators, students, and families are as protected as possible,” said state Sen. Dave Cortese, D-San Jose.

State Moves Napa, SF, Santa Clara Counties Into Red Tier

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State Moves Napa, SF, Santa Clara Counties Into Red Tier

Napa, San Francisco and Santa Clara counties moved out of the state’s most-restrictive COVID-19 pandemic reopening tier Tuesday as case rates continue to decline across the Bay Area.

The three counties moved out of the purple tier and into the red tier based on their coronavirus case and test positivity rates. With San Mateo and Marin counties falling out of the purple tier last week, there are now five Bay Area counties in the red tier. 

Whereas most business sectors were required to operate outdoors or remain closed under purple tier restrictions, the tier changes will allow the three counties to resume indoor operations at 10-25 percent capacities for businesses like gyms, restaurants, movie theaters, museums, zoos and aquariums. 

“This year has been incredibly hard on our residents and small businesses, so every step forward is critical to making sure they can survive this pandemic,” San Francisco Mayor London Breed said in a statement. “To make sure we can keep moving forward, we all need to stay focused and continue to follow the health guidance.”

San Francisco businesses and activities can reopen under red tier protocols Wednesday at 8am, according to city officials. In Napa County, red tier activities can resume at 12:01am Wednesday.

In addition to Napa, San Francisco and Santa Clara, four other counties across the state moved into the red tier Tuesday, reducing the number of purple tier counties in California to 40. 

At least a dozen more counties are expected to move into less-restrictive tiers next week as well, according to Gov. Gavin Newsom. 

The state’s county-level industry guidelines can be found here. 

Bay Area Pop Star Designs Custom Ukulele with Kala Brand Music

A frontrunner in the ukulele industry for more than 15 years, Petaluma-based instrument manufacturer Kala Brand Music has released untold numbers of ukuleles and other music makers, but none look like the forthcoming Signature Concert Ukulele designed by Bay Area artist mxmtoon. Born and raised in Oakland, self-made singer-songwriter mxmtoon—who also goes by Maia­—catapulted to the forefront of the indie-pop...
Read more

Napa County is in the Red Tier. What can Reopen?

Covid-19 Vaccine Santa Rosa, California
Marin and Napa counties are among 16 California counties now in the less-restrictive red tier. Sonoma County remains in the purple tier.
Read more

Cultivator Chris Hayes

California Dreaming Chris Hayes was a Californian before he came to California, though he didn’t really know it. His 19th-century counterparts arrived from the four corners of the world to pan for gold. “I came for the San Francisco music scene,” he tells me on an overcast day when the earth is green and when real weeds, not weed, are growing...
Read more

Ferlinghetti Spaghetti

Ferlinghetti
A poet prevails As regards the recent passing of poet, playwright and Beat publisher, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, exiting at three digits still seems untimely for such a towering figure. This column will not be your encomium du jour—better writers have better remembrances of this particular cartographer of the American soul. But here are mine—all five.  Please note, I fully accede these are...
Read more

Two Centenarian Marin Groups Team Up for Heroic Art Show

In 1919, Marin County nonprofit organization Cedars became the first residential school in the Western United States for people with developmental disabilities. This year, the 101-year-old organization marks a new milestone—its first collaborative art exhibition with high school art students at The Branson School in Ross. This month, the two groups unveil “Heroes and Heroines,” which opens on March 4...
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Jesse Brewster Sings From the Heart on New Record

Seasoned North Bay singer-songwriter Jesse Brewster always looked up to his older brother Jim. “After high school, I wasn’t driven towards any goal, but I was playing guitar,” Brewster says. “He was a big encourager of what I was doing, so I probably wouldn’t be doing it without him.” When Jim passed away from Polycystic Kidney Disease (PKD) when he was...
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Letters to the Editor: Considering the Cost of the Death Penalty

I generally agree with David Dozier’s comments about the death penalty (Open Mic, Feb. 10). However, like everything else in life it is mostly, but not entirely, a black-and-white issue. Consider the case of Timothy McVeigh, who blew up the Federal Building in Oklahoma City, killing 168 people. Or of Jeffrey Dahmer, who murdered 17 young men and then dismembered...
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Open Mic: Finding Wings Within Uncertainty

Stage microphone
There’s so much to feel insecure about in my 75th year. I’m no stranger to mishap. But I can either stay rooted in fear about what’s coming, dwell on past conditioning—or let go and surrender into the unknown with all the faith I can muster. For sure, living in fear, trying to control, manipulate or hang on to whatever one...
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State Officials Announce $6.6B Deal to Reopen Schools Statewide

The package includes $2 billion in grants to support safety measures for students and educators returning to in-person classes, including personal protection equipment, improvements to classroom ventilation and regular coronavirus testing.
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State Moves Napa, SF, Santa Clara Counties Into Red Tier

The three counties will be allowed to resume indoor operations at 10-25 percent capacities for at some businesses.
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