Bruce Bellingham

The Summer of Our Disconnect

2009-07-12T09:51:00.000-07:00

Fat, we are, reminded once again, is bad for us. Not surprisingly, a new study shows that Americans eat far too much fat and it's a major cause of the myriad medical maladies that people suffer these days, mostly heart disease and cancer.
Fat is now considered the universal enemy of the human body, although it's been pretty good for Dr. Dean Ornish, who has several best-sellers about the dangers of consuming the flesh of animals, and the attendant "bad" cholesterol.
In the old days, fat wasn't so bad. The table wasn't complete without a stick of butter. Bacon fat was saved and stored in the fridge for reuse.
When I was a kid, we used to give greasy food to the dog because "it was good for his coat." But even at an early age I knew it wasn't good for my coat. I learned that after being punished for hiding fried onion rings in the pocket of the new blazer that I got for Easter.
The only thing worse for your heart than fat is the stress generated by reading the relentless news reports about how just about everything we eat kills us. Chinese food, Mexican food, popcorn, hot dogs and margarine - all deemed deadly.
But let's face it. Is anyone really surprised? Not even the bravest knosher really thinks he is going to get away with eating hot dogs on a regular basis without a metabolic penalty.
People who buy loge seats at the movies and insist on having popcorn drenched in hollandaise sauce know they're risking myocardial infarction even before the feature begins.
Chinese food was simply too good to be true.
The dangers of margarine are only a cruel joke on those who believed there was a substitute for butter. It turns out they would have been better off smearing Crisco on pieces of bread.
"Everything your parents told you was good for you turned out to be bad for you," says Woody Allen. "Milk, red meat, college."
I'm still stunned to learn that bran muffins are suppose to be bad for you. Big muffins, all bulbous and browned - resembling a mushroom picked at Chernobyl - that taste like furniture stuffing, mixed with mucilage and covered with a sweetened lacquer are as treacherous as a king cobra. The muffins have as much fat, it seems, as five McDonald's hamburgers.
Cruel, isn't it? This alleged cholesterol-lowering ballast turns out to be artery-blocking sludge, pulmonary paraffin, concrete in the capillaries. Wham, bam, thank you, bran.
I confess I'm old enough to recall when sunlight was suppose to be good for you. Remember the advertising slogan, "Sunshine Vitamin D"? Now we know "D" stands for "deadly."
Exposure to sunshine now falls in a nefarious category with botched breast implants, flesh-eating bugs, Eboli, E-coli, pets with plague, lead laden emissions, seeping selenium and Reality TV.
Experts warn, cheerfully, that most of the damage from the sun already has been done -- all before we reach the age of 14.
Now I might be in some cardiovascular peril due to a childhood fueled by french fries and doughnuts, but I must say it isn't likely I will suffer the effects of ultraviolet exposure. And I owe it all to horror movies.
As summer draws to a close, I think back on wondrous dark days as a youngster at my grandmother's house.
With the shades drawn to keep out the garish sun, I'd watch sci-fi and horror films on TV all afternoon. It was my education in classic creep show -- "Dracula," "The Wolf Man," and "The Mummy."
My brothers played ball in the sandlot by the river. But I was fat and pale and only enthusiastic about wrapping my face in my grandfather's Ace bandages that smelled like Absorbine Jr.
With hat and sunglasses, I could look pretty much like Claude Rains in "The Invisible Man."
"You're going to have nightmares," my grandmother would warn me. But I never did--not until I saw "On the Beach" -- the parable of worldwide nuclear annihilation. That movie was too real, too believable, and I had bad dreams for weeks. (To this day, I get the chills when I see a nuclear submarine come into the Bay under the Golden Gate Bridge--just like in the film.)
One day, my brothers discovered a new activity, to ride their bicycles behind a converted fire engine that sprayed mosquitoes with DDT. It belched great white clouds of pesticide, and they said it was great fun to fall behind on bikes and get lost in the weird smoke.
That got me out of the house like a shot. When the red roadster rolled around each day at dusk, I was there with a mob of neighborhood kids, breathing it all in, eyes running with copious tears of chemical irritation. Now, that's what I call fun.
Over the years, I've wondered what this may have done to my brothers and me. Perhaps I should donate my body to Union Carbide.
*****
When I think of summer days at the Jersey shore, I think of Midnight. Every lad and lassie should have a rabbit.
Mine was Midnight, jet black--not a trace of white or brown. All black. That was unusual, I heard my parents say. But I knew Midnight was special anyway.
He (or she) would go with me to school--I was in first grade-- and Midnight was a big hit. Pictures were displayed on the walls and a biography was prepared by the children. The bunny made me a bit of a celebrity, too, and I liked that.
"You and me, Smid," I'd say to the famous-in-the-classroom black rabbit, "we're going places."
Like most performing artists, Midnight had some bad habits.
He (let's just settle on "he") would like to nosh on my mother's new green carpet and leave little holes in it. Perhaps it resembled a lawn. Ruining the new carpet is about the worst thing you can do to a suburban housewife.
For this, Midnight was remanded to the downstairs recreation room during the nights--and kept out of the house during the days.
Heating can cost a fortune on the East Coast so the door to the rec room remained closed and the heat was turned off in the basement, where Midnight was kept. One night, one of those famous frosts came early. I dashed downstairs to find Midnight on the cold floor, stiff as a board. I mean stiff. You could have picked up the poor rigid beast and used him for a cricket mallet. If you dropped him, I fear he'd shatter.
I was hysterical. I accused my mother of lepus-ide. But wise woman she was, she got a heating pad. Within an hour, the rabbit was completely restored to life, with no apparent damage incurred by his cryonic experience.
But, ironically, it wasn't the cold that was Midnight's downfall--it was the heat.
Midnight loved my mother. He'd follow her all over the back yard as she'd hang up the wash. If she took a step, he'd take a step, just a few paces behind her. It was remarkable to watch.
The New Jersey summers can be as brutal as the winters. On a particularly sweltering afternoon, my mom was out in the yard with Midnight. One moment he was keeping up with her. In the next, old Smid was stretched out peacefully in the grass--for good.
With his black fur, the poor thing was exceptionally vulnerable to heat stroke.
My mother sobbed to my father on the phone while he was at work. She couldn't get the words out.
"What is it?" he asked, alarmed, of course. "Is it one of the kids?"
"No, no," mom wailed. "It's the rabbit! Midnight is dead."
"Oh," my father replied grimly. "I guess we'll have to tell Bruce."
And so, still at the Jersey Shore with my brothers, I was informed of the passing of Midnight, the famed black rabbitt, who gave me my first brush with show business, my first encounter with animal resuscitation, and my first experience with things that die.
We buried Midnight under the sycamore tree. That way he got plenty of shade.

Years later, when my older brother, Jack, returned from college on the summer break, he brought a rabbit with him. He called him Nigel.
I only mention this because Nigel, too, ended up having an out-of-body, near-death, experience. But this wasn't caused by the cold.
Nigel--like all rabbits--was fascinated by green things. He managed to get into my brother's suitcase, and eat all of his high-octane marijuana that Jack had brought back from Oklahoma. Yes, Nigel gobbled up the entire ounce or two of the Shawnee Wowee or whatever it was.
The rabbit remained unconscious for a few days. He finally awoke and, boy -- was he hungry.
It was all we could do to keep him away from my mother's green carpet.

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a piece from the archive, ten years on now, it's still "happiness is just a cup of joe" ..

2009-07-12T09:27:00.000-07:00

Norm Howard was listening to KCBS, caught a bit of the debate over the now ill-footed, I mean ill-fated, plan to erect an 18-foot-tall sculpture of a human foot at the foot of Mission Street, near San Francisco's famed Ferry Building.
Says Norm, "A very intense woman explained that she was opposed to the sculpture on the grounds that it very obviously depicted a 'male, Caucasian foot.'"
How she could discern this from a stainless steel structure, I have no idea.
At any rate, the Board of Supervisors, caught in a toe jam, got cold feet and es-shoed the $500,000 project.
If anyone wondered if San Francisco suffers from chronic provincialism, then one need not look further than seeing how Oprah Winfrey got two parking tickets during a visit here last week -- making front page news.
The real item, of course, is how she summarily handed the tickets over to Willie Brown so he could "fix" them. But City Hall says the mayor does not use his office to "fix" tickets, he simply pays them. Sure, he can afford it, but Oprah might have spent a little of her lunch money on purchasing a one-day parking amnesty for the whole city. Now, that would have been classy.
Deb Jarrett, who works in the Marina, has been touched by the pungent scent of politics: "I was in an elevator with Mayor Brown the other day," reports Deb. "I swear he smelled like a French whorehouse."
Goes to show that some things do, after all, stick to Teflon Willie.
Nice line from Coppola's "Godfather III," on the telly this week. Al Pacino, as Michael Corleone, mutters, "Politics and crime. They're the same thing."
Paleotologists, digging in Ethiopia, have found what could be evidence of the "missing link" between monkeys and mankind.
Researchers in the region reportedly discovered the rusty remains of a Thighmaster among fossils of ancient apes. "As for the cell phone," explained a flustered Dr. Anthony Farouche, "one of us may have dropped it there."
As a skeptic, I know that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia when herders noticed the goats were staying up all night after chewing on the coffee plants. Maybe the remains of these subhumans are really people who couldn't get their hands on any caffeine. I mean, who's really human until we get that first cup of coffee? Well, it's just a thought.
Ulrica Hume has a nice, new book out, "San Francisco in a Teacup," about where to find a nice place that serves a nice afternoon tea -- or tea anytime.
Bob Hope talks about one of the secrets of his longevity, "When I was touring in vaudeville, I never would go to the greasy spoons to eat -- it was always tea rooms."
Old ski-nose saw many a performer turned into a colonic casualty from eating in those domains of ptomaine.
The inimitable Dave Burgin, formerly the editor of the San Francisco Examiner, the Oakland Tribune, the Atlanta Constitution and innumerable other dailies, has re-emerged as editor/publisher at Woodford Publications, a SF-based house that's handling Barnaby Conrad's excellently grand art book on John Register and Hank Greenwald's autobiography. Hank was the voice of the San Francisco Giants ball club
The Greenwald memoir made the front page this week after the Giants organization took umbrage over some of Hank's disparaging comments about the team.
Burgin says he just doesn't understand why the Giants would ban the book from their Dugout stores. "Can you imagine?" Dave writes. "Killing 500 copies of Hank's book in the Dugout stores, then accusing us of 'just trying to sell books.' Unclear on the concept."
All in all, it spells hefty publicity for the book. That's a topic Dave handles brilliantly. He very nearly orchestrated Herb Caen's defection from the Chronicle to the Examiner back in the 1980s -- but some in-house politics nixed the deal. Sure would have changed the landscape of the newspaper business here.
Yes, old-timers will recall that Caen left the Chron and worked at the Ex for eight years, back in the 1950s.
NATO looks awfully silly as it puts on its 50th birthday party while this agency of European stability plans a ground war in Yugoslavia.
Organizers downplayed the festiviities. The cork was kept in the Dom Perignon while delegates secretly sipped the Sterno located under the hot hors d'oevres.
Yes, the occasion was a grim one but let's look on the bright side: they won't have to have another one for another 50 years -- or never -- whichever comes first.
Well, have a swell weekend. If you plan to see a movie, check out "Lost & Found," with David Spade. New York Times critic Stephen Holden calls it "a rancid, little nothing of a movie." A deadly ringing endorsement.

Cheers from the City by the Bay -- Bellingham, April 23, 1999

Elegy for the Tragically Unhip

2009-07-08T12:33:00.000-07:00

When I got a rejection slip from a trendy, au courant magazine the other day, I immediately went off to see my friend Anne Masarweh, whom I often consult on matters of coolness, hipness and other vagaries of fashion.
Anne knows these things. After all, she runs a hip, cool clothing store on San Francisco's Grant Avenue called wearEver. Clever name. Whatever. As you walk in the door, you find a conspicuous display of the latest issue of Details magazine, that arbiter of what's cool, the oracle of 20-something style.
"You're just not weird enough," Anne said as she handed the thank-you-but-no-thanks letter back to me.
Ms. Masarweh is a little unusual in the sense that she's always kind, and certainly diplomatic.
But I knew the truth. She didn't have to spell it out for me. I just don't have the quality that is necessary to be part of contemporary culture. It's called "attitude."
Attitude is the key these days. I know I'm getting old because I can remember when you needed an adjective before the word to convey its meaning, that is, "good attitude" and "bad attitude." Plenty of times, in my shoddy youth, I was chided by one authority or another with, "You have a bad attitude, Bruce."
This assessment was always accompanied by a warning, such as, "You're going to walk a straight line from now on" or "Better turn over a new leaf" and that sort of thing. That's when a bad attitude was generally accepted as a bad thing -- insubordinate, intemperate, and incorrigible.
Of course, I used to think anarchy was pretty romantic, too. That was before we actually had it. Anarchy is no longer romantic because it is the commonplace. It fell into the wrong hands: everybody's.
Today's attitude is a mixture of anarchy, and narcissism. The anarchy comes from the stunning lowering of standards. The narcissism comes from the justification that "we don't know anything and we don't have to know anything. That's good enough for us."
It has crept into the culture. The new radio station calls itself "radio with attitude." What does that mean? It means that the talent on the air has nothing worth listening to, so the host resorts to shouting. Often it's an attack on safe targets like old white guys. That's attitude from the left. The right wing also has discovered attitude. Rush Limbaugh's search-and-destroy skill on the airwaves made a difference in the political playground.
It's style over truth. Republicans even played one-upmanship with feminists and borrowed their term "empowerment" to name their GOP channel on cable, National Empowerment Television. That's attitude.
It has crept into sports with the "I don't need to be a role model" sort of thing and the celebrating that goes on when a player scores while his team trails hopelessly by four touchdowns.
It has crept into advertising, where the California lottery ads boast that getting a winning ticket is like taking credit for someone else's joke (I'm a little touchy about that) or brings one all the exhilaration of "using a postage stamp all over again."
The message is that getting away with something, at the expense of someone else, is the key to success.
Attitude is thriving in American politics. A legislator on Capitol Hill calls the president of the United States, a "scumbag." And the man who occupies 1600 Pennsylvania has trouble telling the truth -- even with cue cards.
Yes, life is difficult, but it doesn't have to be uncivil.
Of course, if M. Scott Peck tried to publish his "The Road Less Traveled" today, the first line, "Life is difficult..." would probably be changed to "Life really sucks, man ..."
It's sad to see people with class and elegance pushed aside.
On C-SPAN, I saw a group of old white guys paying tribute to Charles Kuralt, not long before he died.
Kuralt was roasted by Ed Yoder, Calvin Trillin, Andy Rooney, and Bill Moyers. Just a bunch of tired old codgers wallowing about in civility and eloquence.
"There's something to be said for plainness," Kuralt once wrote.
"And I might add," Moyers continued, "there's something to be said for grace, humility, and humor in a medium growing crude, trivial, and tabloid before our very eyes. Something to be said as well for Penstaff's Gas Station and Poem Factory, for chats with Wahoo McDaniel and Tiger Olsen, and stories of lumberjacks and gandy-dancers, and beer can collectors. Something to be said for news of maple leaves turning and wild mustangs running, and magpies taking to the wing. Something to be said for saluting the minds of the scientist, the soul of the poet, the sound of the flute, and the faith of the believer's heart.
"Something to be said of victimless wit and wisdom that is humble. And something to be said for words, clear words and honest, that get it just right. Something to be said for being reminded that the ordinary endures and is good, and is us."
There's also something to be said for saying something.
Oh, well. I guess Anne is right: I shouldn't worry about the editors at the hip mag, bless their pop culture, pea-picking, post-pubescent hearts.
Besides, one of these days Gwyneth Paltrow's going to be on the cover of Modern Maturity. You wait and see. She's already hip to that.

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A Cascade of Celebrity Deaths

2009-06-29T07:22:00.000-07:00

I would have written sooner, people, but I've been busy making a deal with Mrs. Bernie Madoff ... then I got distracted by Twitter. Isn't Twitter great? I just got a message that reads, "Breakup sucks dick." I don't think I can keep up with that level of eloquence.
Then there are all the obligatory Michael Jackson stories. Another distraction. Why do some of us think that celebrities are immune to mortality anyway? I guess it's because we think that they are a little larger than life.
As was sweet Farrah Fawcett. She did more for the calendar business than Julius Caesar. Farrah was the 1970s -- full of fun, frippery, and flirting. She was the girl next door -- the one who just might let you climb through her bedroom window, if the mood suited her. A symbol of American innocence, she was the girfriend every schoolboy could wish to have. Maybe that's why she fought so hard later to be taken seriously.
If I'd known that Gale Storm lived here in the Bay Area, I might have been tempted to visit her in the convalescent home in Danville. She was 87 when she died this weekend. I recall that as her star faded in the 1960s, she bravely did PSA's on TV about her alcoholism. That takes guts. It shocked a lot of people to see the funny star of "My Little Margie" suddenly being deadly serious, bringing up a topic that makes many queasy. People quietly put down their Tom Collinses on their TV trays for a good three minutes.
Yes, I'm old enough to remember "My Little Margie," one of the few TV shows that was actually named after a song. By the way, Ray Charles did a wonderful version of the tune back in the 1960s.
I always loved Fred Travalena, always marveled at his good-natured way of impersonating show biz icons. He was only 66 when he died in Encino on Sunday.
Death of a Salesman: It's being suggested that a slight blow to the head on an airplane ride may have contributed to the death of the great TV pitchman Billy Mays, who could sell sand to the Bedouins.
A tough weekend to die if you're a celebrity. Not much airtime or space for anything but Michael Jackson. A shame we can't see Billy Mays sell Demerol to Gale Storm on the television in the middle of the night as Fred Travalena does the Moonwalk.

Mr. B

An Inconvenient Lack of Truth

2009-06-24T11:04:00.000-07:00

In late June the students, and faculty at San Francisco's Academy of Art University held a vigil to encourage the North Korean government to release two San Francisco-based journalists who are being held in prison there. You've been hearing and reading about them. The two women, Laura Ling, and Euna Lee, work for Current TV, which has its headquarters down by the ball park. Euna graduated the Academy of Arts University on 2001 with a bachelor of arts degree. These reporters are really adopted hometown gals, and merit support from all of us as San Francisco citizens.
But that doesn't mean that key players in this mess should start getting on the air, and on the blogs to rail against the people in power in Pyongyang. Not yet.
Al Gore, the co-founder of Current TV, is taking a lot of heat for not being more outspoken about the women's incarceration. They were sentenced to 12 years at hard labor for illegally sneaking into the country, and committing "grave crimes" against North Korea. That's a real reporter for you. Most people in North Korea would like to sneak out of the country. A journalist has to finagle a way to get into it. My definition of a reporter is someone who goes out into the rain without an umbrella just to be able to impart what it's like to get wet.
Vice-president Gore is doing the right thing for being circumspect, and not giving interviews about the matter, which is grimly complicated by North Korea's threats to continue nuclear weapons tests, and promises to fire missiles in the direction of Hawaii. Gore has also directed his Current TV staffers not to discuss the case of Euna Lee, and Laura Ling. They have wisely agreed. It's perfectly appropriate for the families of these two women to make public statements. The two husbands of the imprisoned women appeared at the Academy of Art U.'s rally downtown on Post St. This is their certainly their business. Laura's more famous sister, Lisa Ling, apologized earlier to the North Koreans for whatever her sister, and Ms. Lee had done, insisting they hadn't intended any harm. Lisa's language was careful, contrite. She's nobody's fool, though her kid sister may have acted a bit foolishly.
It's a tough premise to demand forgiveness from others. It doesn't work. Lisa Ling understands that, Al Gore knows it, too. It's takes time to allow someone to change his or her mind or allow providence to prevail. One example of this is the case of New York Times reporter David Rohde, who, after seven months, escaped his Taliban captors in Pakistan. The Times had kept the story under wraps, curtailing coverage about Rohde's kidnapping, which took place in Afghanistan. A little bribery may have played a role in his escape, but a big ransom, it seems, was not paid. An armed assault was considered, but then reconsidered. It looks like patience, and restraint may have worked. The rules of the game are changing in this world. Wait a minute. What rules? There is none. The Iranians freed American journalist Roxana Saberi after a lot of publicity was generated. But the North Koreans are not the Iranians. Nor are they the Taliban.
Bill Keller, the executive editor of the N.Y. Times, said, "I was relieved when I talked to David and he said, 'By the way, thank you for not making a public event out of this. We heard the people who kidnapped me were obsessed with my value in the marketplace. If there were a lot of news stories, they would have held me much tighter."
When considering Al Gore, one cannot imagine a more different vice-president than Dick Cheney.
I think it's fair to say that Dick Cheney forgot more than we'll ever know -- about Dick Cheney. I'd like to forget more about Dick Cheney, but he simply won't let anyone forget him just yet. Here's a man who has no sense of the value of remaining quiet. I'm fascinated to learn that his memoir will be released in the spring of 2011 by Simon & Schuster. Don't be surprised to see much of it redacted -- and much of it stolen by Elizabeth Hasselbeck. There's no word on what the title may be for the Cheney memoir. I suggest Disclosures From An Undisclosed Location or ... An Inconvenient Non-Truth.
Ah, but there are times when I certainly wished I'd kept my mouth shut, and let things progress in their own way for awhile. Much trouble could have been avoided, much pain might not have been inflicted.
There's a premium in holding one's tongue sometimes. When I was young and foolish, I'd try to hold other people's tongues, but that got rather messy, and awkward. I hope there's a lesson in all of this. But I doubt if I'd learn it anyway. I'm holding my tongue.

Bruce Bellingham is a columnist for the Northside, and the author of Bellingham by the Bay. Castigate him, nay, give him a tongue-lashing at bruce@northsidesf.com

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David Gockley, San Francisco Opera's Boss, Looks Back at a Dazzling Summer Season

2009-06-21T13:26:00.000-07:00

As the San Francisco Opera's Summer Season draws to a close, it's being heralded as one of the most successful runs on record for the company.

One of the highlights was the simulcast of Puccini's Tosca at AT&T Park. It drew 27,000 people on June 5. That's four-thousand more than last year's event at the ball park. Beer, hot dogs and arias are compatible after all. Back at the Opera House, there was a mad rush for tickets to all three productions. Tosca, with wonderfully tight, well-crafted performances, and La Traviata, with Anna Netrebko, the most famous soprano in the world, were on their way to being completely sold-out at this writing. Porgy and Bess was a sell-out from the day the box office opened. Tickets were reportedly being scalped at $600.

Back at the Opera House, the ball park crowd was part of the performance. People stood in the house and in the stadium to sing the national anthem.

“Say, there are some pretty good voices here tonight,” marveled the S.F. Opera’s Julia Inouye.

David Gockley, the Opera’s General Director, took the stage and exclaimed, “Play opera!” And the game, according to Puccini, began.

It's Porgy and Bess that holds a special place in Gockley’s heart. The Northside sat down with him to talk about this phenomenally American masterpiece.

Northside: When you were running the Houston Grand Opera, you staged Porgy and Bess as a real opera for the first time. Then you took the show on the road. That's now part of opera history. (The production won Gockley a Tony Award and a Grammy back in 1977). That was the first time you brought Porgy to San Francisco, right?

Gockley: Yes, the point is that we always tried to keep the costs down, working out of Houston, it worked well in smaller, commercial houses, like the Golden Gate Theatre or the Orpheum. But when we later brought that small company to the Opera House, the production was dwarfed. That was also a summer season, directed by Lotfi Mansouri. I remember being frustrated by it. Should we amplify? Should we take take the chorus downstage? But this year, we have fifty choristers, a full orchestra. It's the first time under my aegis there's been a fully operatically-scaled production. But it's a regular opera. We're not trying to double-cast. We have our Porgy, we have our Bess. It's not something being exploited because it has popular songs in it.

Northside: There are those who have complained for years that Gershwin's opera was never taken seriously enough as an opera.

Gockley: What we did was add back the recitative, we added back some music numbers because it had devolved by hat time into a musical with dialogue connecting the music numbers. There was no Buzzard Song, there was no Jazzbo Brown and so on. I think it devolved out of a tour that went to Russia under the stage direction of someone named Ella Gerber. She was the only stage director authorized to direct it. You had to hire Ella Gerber. She had her own musical comedy version of it.

Northside: The Gershwn Estate has complete control over all this, yes? Is that the Strunsky Family here in San Francisco?

Gockley: Yes, the Gershwin Estate does have control. The Strunskys represent the Ira Gershwin side. There's also a group that represents the George side. They were eager to license the piece as much as possible. I guess it was easier to license to a cut-down version than a full opera. The first hurdle we had was to get Jack O'Brien engaged as director. We had to start from scratch. (O'Brien has won three Tony Awards, nominated for seven more, and won five Drama Desk Awards.)

Northside: Where do you find the parts of the opera that have been set aside for years?

Gockley: The person who did a lot of that detail work is John DeMain, who is here. (He served as Music Director and Principal Conductor for the Houston Grand Opera for eighteen years.) He was the conductor on the 1976 version in Houston. I think he went to the Library of Congress where a lot of Gershwin materials are stored.

Northside: You hired the great Anna Netrebko to sing in La Traviata this season. Do you have to sacrifice a part of your budget in order to acquire a superstar like that?

Gockley: We stick to a top fee. The gossip is that it's $15,000 per performance. To go back to Lily Pons in the 1940s, she was getting 5-thousand then. And Merola was paying it. It's interesting that the singers of that era got much more of a percentage of the budget than they do today -- with the unionized orchestras, the unionized stagehands, the choruses, the extensiveness of the physical productions and all that now. They (the star singers) get paid more when they do a concert. A typical Renée Fleming concert fee -- especially in Europe where she's more of a box office draw than she is here -- and, according to gossip, is more like $75,000. So doing a string of concerts is much more lucrative. We have to go up against that when we're trying to get people to be here for five weeks to do seven performances. Five weeks, seven performances. Seven times fifteen. Do the math.

Northside: What are you working on next? How far do you have to plan in advance?

Gockley: Well, yesterday we were talking about the 2015 season.

Northside: Really? How optimistic.

Gockley: We were talking about Meistersinger, we were talking about Trojans, we were talking Die Frau Ohne Schatten, we were also talking about the more popular pieces. We're considering new commissions. We announced three new commissions in January, and they are chugging along.

Northside: Do you worry about the composers of new works not being able to make their deadlines? Does that sort of thing keep you awake at night?

Gockley: The aches and pains of being my age are the things that keep me awake at night. I don't worry too much. I just get up, do my best.

Northside: Did you ever have a career disaster, one that still hurts to this day?

Gockley: Yes, I suppose I have. A Quiet Place by Leonard Bernstein. A wouldn't call it an out-and-out disaster -- more of a stinging disappointment. It's a serious, worthy piece. As you know, Michael Tilson Thomas does a part of it in his opening concert every year at Carnegie Hall. But it was not what the Houston public was looking for, the ones who love West Side Story. You see, the first line of A Quiet Place is "Merry Christmas to you, too, asshole."

Northside: Not so quiet. And it's downhill from there, right? Is Candide also pushing the audience too much?

Gockley: Candide, yes, we did that. It didn't make much of an impression. It was when we were still in a three-thousand seat, old, multi-purpose theater in Houston. We didn't have any real big personality people in it. I wouldn't call it a chamber opera but I'd call it it, you know, for a theater with 12-hundred or a thousand seats. Other than that, it just did not have an impact.

Northside: I attended a kick-off, if you will, for the upcoming Opera Ball. (It's the major fundraiser for the Opera's Education Program for the public schools.) Is that the sort of thing that could alienate people during this dreary economic slump?

Gockley: Our purpose in having that event was to remind people that there's a very positive outcome of the Opera Ball, whether it being good times, or very, very challenging times. One might ask, 'Why have something this frivolous as a society Opera Ball?' Well, it's because people come out, put on their dresses, spend that kind of money, and have all that good food because it raises 800-thousand to a million-dollars that is spent exclusively on education.

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Bellingham by the Bay, San Francisco Northside, July 2009

2009-06-20T08:08:00.000-07:00

Walter Cronkite has been in the news, but, as of this writing Uncle Walter -- the most trusted man in America before Homer Simpson came along -- seemed to be doing all right up there in Cape Cod. When I think of Walter Cronkite, I think of his appearance at Herb Caen Day on June 14, 1996. On Channel 5, Marcia Brandwynne asked me why Walter was there. "Cronkite & Herb go back to WW II when they met in London; Walter was working for what was then called United Press, before it was UPI. Herb was there for the Chronicle." Then Cronkite explained the whole story to the crowd. I was relieved I'd gotten it all right. He marveled about how a whole city could turn out to honor a columnist: "San Francisco didn't need Herb Caen to bring it fame, but he put a frame around its gorgeous and glorious image." When I think of Walter Cronkite, I think about the time he talked to Michael Dixon and me about his book on sailing. I also think about how my lust for spare ribs & champagne on my 12th birthday kept me home sick from grade school the next day. That's how, on Nov. 22, 1963, I watched Walter Cronkite, without his jacket on, break into As the World Turns on CBS live, & announce the shooting of JFK in Dallas. I owe that witness to history to my mother's indulgence & to my youthful penchant for pork & bubbly. "The road to excess leads to the Palace of Wisdom," wrote the poet. I wonder. ...

More carnal knowledge: Morgan Hamm & Drew Stevenson, who run the deli in Nob Hill's Le Beau Grocery on Clay & Leavenworth, famed for their Friday Fried Chicken, have become local stars. The gals gush over them, the guys hover about to pose probing questions about Thuringer & other meaty matters. My grandmother used to say, "Lips that have touched head cheese shall never touch mine." She had that message embroidered in a frame, hanging in the kitchen. Nah, Nana never said that. Sorry. Now I owe an apology to animal rights advocates for freely discussing all this anti-veggie behavior. But, PETA, let me ask you: Do you really want a president who wouldn't harm a fly? ...

After 35 years or so, Van Morrison, who's been living in Ireland & England, is moving back to the Bay Area, Mill Valley, actually, where his daughter, songstress Shana, lives. She acquired her musical education in her grandparents record store in Fairfax. "Van wants to lie low and cool out for three or four years," says his old friend, Myles O'Reilly. "Mill Valley is the right place to do it." In the old days, Van & his band used to show up unannounced at small clubs all over Marin & San Francisco. Of course, most of those clubs, such as, The Lion's Share, Keystone Korner & The Boarding House, are gone now. For the first time in 13 years, Myles did not have a Bloomsday celebration last month at his pub & restaurant at 622 Green St. "We thought we'd give it a rest this year," says his companion, Chiching Herlihy. No worries. James Joyce is always in attendance in the pub -- in the mural with the other Irish writers on the wall. Every day is Bloomsday at O'Reilly's. ...

A big turnout at the Washington Square Bar & Grill on June 20 to honor Linda Fimrite, who was the popular hostess there for six years. Linda, who was married to the wonderful writer, Ron Fimrite, had been fighting cancer. She died on May 26 at the age of 72. She was famous and loved by many through her years as a painter, a publicist & a political consultant. Linda loved to tell stories about her time working on Sen. Eugene McCarthy's presidential campaign in 1968. Linda also worked on John Tunney's U.S. Senate campaign. She also didn't mind saying that she delighted in seeing herself described as "the gorgeous Linda Fimrite" by P.J. Corkery and, later, in my column in the Examiner. It became a bit of a tradition. Linda Fimrite was indeed gorgeous, both inside & out. ... Another loss to the neighborhood: Two hundred people crowded into MoMo's near the ball park on June 11 to bid a farewell to Leslie Asche, the irrepressible server at Momo's & the Washington Square Bar & Grill. Leslie, a voracious reader & astute interpreter of human nature, died on May 1 after a brief illness at the age of 62. No quicker nor saltier wit than Leslie's. It was a bit unsettling when Jim Schock, the author & broadcaster, suffered a seizure at the bar during the wake for Leslie, and had to be trundled away by ambulance. But Jim's all right. The doctors declared his condition as indefatigable & sent him home. ... Speaking of ambulances, Oscar Levant's favorite conveyance, among the fees that are skyrocketing in order to live in San Francisco is the fare for riding in a city ambulance. It will rise from about $1000 to $1500. That's one-way. I might have to go back to taking taxicabs. ...

The veteran actress Diane Baker, who’s in charge of the acting department at the Academy of Art University, is promoting the 50th Anniversary DVD Edition of The Diary of Anne Frank. Ms. Baker played Anne’s sister, Margot, when Ms. Baker was 19 years old. “Please don’t tell me that movie was made fifty years ago,” laments Carole Vernier. “I can vividly remember seeing the Anne Frank house in Amsterdam when I was a kid.” I guess it’s best we not forget. … "I'm not going to let Doctor Sorrow operate on me today," avows Sharon Anderson. “I wish I'd said it, but Tom Waits did. He said everything good that Bob Dylan didn't.” … Perry’s on Union St. is observing its 40th anniversary this year. Dr. Harvey Caplan, a Perry’s regular, just observed his 70th anniversary. Harvey’s a rare fellow -- a scholar, a musician, and a very convivial, compassionate physician. No Doctor Sorrow is he. … Stu Smith describes Connie Champagne as "San Francisco musical royalty." She's to be forgiven for living in Los Angeles. She's still part of the local fabric of this town. And such fabric, I'm tellin ya, dollink, just touch it. Connie sings Judy Garland better than Judy Garland. Connie's back in town, boys, performing Songs to Make You Gay at the New Conservatory Theatre, 25 Van Ness, from July 9 through August 1. …

A new study shows that a regular toilet plunger when properly used is just as effective as traditional CPR in saving a heart attack victim. Yes, a toilet plunger. “Unfortunately,” observes Norm Goldblatt, “most health plans won't cover it. Too expensive. Do you KNOW what a plumber charges these days?” …

Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, published by Council Oak Books. He’s not about to let Dr. Sorrow operate on him: bruce@northsidesf.com

Let's Go Ahead and Make Promises Anyway

2009-06-16T09:20:00.000-07:00

The other day a good friend of mine tried to hoodwink me a bit. I almost fell for it.
"Give me your business card, Bellingham," he demanded. Believe it or not, I have one. Believe it or not, it actually depicts my real business.
"Here 'tis," said I.
"Now I want you to write this. 'I am sorry that I voted for Obama' -- and sign it."
"But I'm not sorry I voted for Obama. Not yet, anyway."
"C'mon," he pressed, "I'm collecting these things from all sorts of people."
"They're actually writing these things?"
"Yup, they sure are."
"He's only been in office for six months."
"They're already sorry."
I am sorry for all kinds of things. I'm sorry that 59-million Americans voted for George Bush in 2004. I am sorry that I did not see the Beatles at Shea Stadium when I had the chance. I am sorry I never met Edgar Rice Burroughs. But no one is inviting me to write anything about that. I wonder why.
I'm sorry I did not vote for Eugene Debs in 2008 -- but he wasn't on the ballot. No point in writing in the name of a dead candidate. I guess a write-in on Election Day is the only form of legal graffiti that’s left to us before the authorities take us away. Just as effective, too. I was accused last month of being a Socialist. That's funny. C'mon. I wouldn't know the difference between being a Socialist and being a socialite.
During the Great Depression, FDR was worried about a Socialist uprising. Funny, though, the collapsed economy seemed to play favorites for the Fascists.
"What did Franco do that was so wrong?" someone asked me not so long ago.
He killed Garcia Lorca for starters. Is that not bad enough? I am sorry about that horrific crime. But, for the fascists, it was very effective.
For what I am really sorry about, in a personal way, I could not fit on a thousand business cards. Fortunately, most of it is no one's business, even the business of my readers, whom I hold in high regard. If you really want to know what I'm sorry about, I'll answer requests individually. But that, as Vernon Alley used to say, makes no never mind.
I still chuckle to myself when I think of the song that Paul Anka wrote for Frank Sinatra, (I Did It) My Way.
"Regrets -- I've had a few -- but, then again, too few to mention."
Sinatra had no regrets? Maybe not. Although I'm sure he found growing up in Hoboken regrettable. He hated it. On the waterfront, you can look out at the Empire State Building across the Hudson River, and dream of reaching the heavens. And Sinatra did. He was a Hoboken Cinderella.
You've heard that old adage, "A picture is worth a thousand words." I have bad news for you. Because of the economic downturn, a picture is now worth about 752 words. That's about as long as this column. All right, already, the picture will come next month. I promise. No column. Just a picture. You won't have to trudge through all these sentences, and get your imaginary boots all muddy. I promise. Hah! You believed me. Aren't you sorry now? No, no, no, you can trust me. I'm an honorable man. We are all honorable men. Sure, I gave up my gig at Bear Stearns to become a writer. Listen. If you can't trust your local columnist, then who can you trust? I promise you, prosperity is just around the corner. There's something to say about promises. In the stock market, they're called "futures." At the Cache Cow Casino, it's called "gaming." It used to be called gambling. Let's face it: we're all gamblers. That's because we want to stay in the game, no matter what happens. Most of us are slaves to hope. The Audacity of Hope. That title paid off big for Obama. It's a good title. I'd be pleased simply to maintain a capacity to hope. I hope.
"Titles are everything," says my sagacious friend, Maurice Kanbar. He should know. He's a marketing genius. Maurice produced a fine film called Hoodwinked. No, it's not about the Bush years. Good title, though.
One of our local writers, Michael Savage, has a knack for coming up with best sellers, too, you know. Like Obama, he's made millions off his books. The titles don't come to my mind immediately, but I think Michael, the former San Francisco Democrat, wrote I Hate Everybody, then he published its sequel, I Hate Nearly Everybody Except Those Who Believe Fox News. I think the latest is called Not To Worry: I'll Hate Everyone You Hate, Just Give Me Their Names. His books are hugely popular.
I'm pleased to know that, in this Depression, people still find money to spend on real literature.
I don't see fortunetellers going out of business. OK, a few. But they could see it coming. I love that scene in the movie Touch of Evil where Marlene Dietrich is preposterously portrayed in a brunette wig (I think it's brunette, could be red. I can't be sure. The movie's in black & white). Dietrich explains chillingly to a bereft Orson Welles why she cannot forecast his fate: "You haff no future," she says, "you used it all up."
When I was a kid, I used to see a folk singer named Tim Hardin at the Café Au Go Go in Greenwich Village. One of his great songs was Don't Make Promises You Can't Keep. Even as a teen, I sensed that he was singing about himself, knowing that he could not make good on his promises, nor could he find the coordinates for his capacity to hope. Tim was a heroin addict, and it seemed that he had the weight of his world on his shoulders. He'd hover over his guitar like the Hunchback of Notre Dame. Out of his great despair came his little songs. He left those great songs for us to savor. I’m certainly not sorry that I, as a kid, went to see Tim Hardin in that little café on Bleecker Street with the rickety wooden chairs, and that irrepressible smell of stale beer.
In fact, all these years later, I remain hopelessly hopeful, and regrettably short on regrets.
I could write that down, if you’d like. Here's my business card.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, and writes a regular column, well, as regular as it can be, for this newspaper, as well as the Marina Times & Media People. Yes, they are newspapers. Newspaper. Now, that’s a beautiful word.

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The Final Word, San Francisco Northside, June 2009

2009-06-10T10:54:00.000-07:00

I often get queasy by the title of this column, by the finality that's suggested, that is. Susan Dyer Reynolds generously gave me this space to use for awhile. She coined the name of the column. I consider the privilege. Just think of all the spaces we occupy in life. I hope it's never really "The Final Word," anytime soon. I seem to be writing a lot of obits recently.
I don't want to have the last word, not for me, not for anyone else, either. Nope, no last words out of me. Just final words. I guess that would make me the perfect husband. But I have other troubling attributes. I storm out of the room sometimes when I can't find the final words in an argument. I can fly into inexplicable rages. To calm down, I might pace the grimy sidewalks of San Francisco for hours. I also ride the buses. I get into taxicabs, too, if there's enough scratch on me. For some reason, I have not driven a car for 25 years. Cab drivers are often the sage purveyors of the the city's terrain, oracles of the town. The inside of taxi on a chilly night seems to be a safe place. I like occupying the space. Can drivers revive my spirit through their funny stories. The relate fractured tales of hopefulness. I can smile again. Just imagine. They drive cars all day, and all night, tormenting the pavement with rotting rubber, in a relentless search for someone friendly. That's a dangerous premise.
Susan Reynolds, and those cabdrivers remind me what a great town San Francisco is. Where else can you step out of your house, another space I occupy, and find a new adventure? I walked out of my house on Clay Street today. No. I was not storming out, I wasn't inexplicably angry at all. Hardly. I'm heartened by the harsh wind against my face, the beauty of the breeze. I am almost -- dare I say it? -- content. I confess. Sometimes I get worried because I'm not worried.
There's a recklessness in the heart. The recklessness drove me to drive to San Francisco 39 years ago this month. I was 18 years old. Yes, I rolled into this town in my mother's 1964 Comet Caliente, expecting all good things, all things being possible. Lots of things did not turn out to be possible, but that does not preclude the days to come. You see, like today, I may saunter out of the house. That's when all things suddenly seem possible.
Over the decades, I've noticed that people have always come to San Francisco in search of something, possibilities, perhaps.
Just around the corner, here on Nob Hill, there's a demolished car, hood crushed, glass everywhere. Apparently, someone threw herself of himself out of the sixth story window.
I'd impart the details, but that's for another page, Yes, another space to occupy. The car has gone nowhere now. It just occupies a parking space.
Whatever happened, it appears that the possibilities for someone became too remote for them to embrace. How easy it is to drive down the wrong road.
Today I am thinking about the 1964 Comet Caliente -- my Mum loved that car -- pretty splashy automobile for an old dame. Silly me. In truth, she was just a good-looking kid. Funny how we boys will always think of our mother's as immovable relics. Ridiculous, isn't it? I'm thinking about that vehicle that brought me to San Francisco 39 years ago, and about my Mum. She gave me the Caliente. She brought me into the world, too.
I drove my hot car to San Francisco. Yes, all those years ago, looking for possibilities.
Well, what do you know? They're still here.

Bruce Bellingham is the Arts & Entertainment Editor of this newspaper. He's working on a new book. Working title: The Pitchfork People. Call him up, torture him. Have you heard? Torture is all the rage. Bruce's e-mail is bruce@northsidesf.com

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Calif. Supreme Court Prop 8 Decision Puts Up Red Flags to Local Arts People

2009-06-10T10:52:00.000-07:00

Marina Times, San Francisco, June 2009

It was an unusual press release from the San Francisco Convention & Visitors Bureau. As the immediate impact of the California State Supreme Court's decision to uphold Prop 8 was starting to sink in, local arts groups, and civic associations were scrambling to head off an explosive backlash.
"While I am personally disappointed with the California Supreme Court's decision, I encourage all gay and lesbian visitors to experience, and embrace the rich diversity that San Francisco represents," said Joe D'Alessandro, president & CEO of the visitors bureau. "San Francisco has long been at the forefront of the struggle for LGBT rights and our community continues to welcome all couples and recognize and celebrate all unions, despite this ruling."
Mayor Gavin Newsom was philosophical.
“California, at its best, is a beacon of equal rights and equal opportunities," he said, "If we want to prosper together, we must respect each other. It is up to every single one of us who supports marriage equality to reach out to those who still disagree with our position, and have a personal conversation about why it is so important to treat every Californian equally.”
That language from Mr. Newsom is a little more conciliatory than "whether you like it or not."
Lots of people in the theater community were bracing for trouble last Tuesday night.
Promoters of press screenings for movies, such as Disney's "Up," which showed for a select audience at the Castro Theatre, quickly e-mailed reviewers en masse, assuring them that the show would go on, even if there were a riot in the Castro, similar to the White Night Riots of 1979 after a jury gave Dan White a perceived light sentence for murdering George Moscone, and Harvey Milk.
"San Francisco has a long history of welcoming the gay and lesbian community," said Joie de Vivre Hospitality founder and CEO Chip Conley. "Even as recently as this month, the City was named Best Domestic Destination in the U.S. in the 2009 Gay.com Travel Awards."
Many were not all that surprised by the court's decision to uphold Prop 8. Seemingly contradictory, though, the justices decided to validate 18,000 same sex marriages.
"I am not surprised at all by the decision, " said a rueful John Castanon just before the decision. He's the manager of the popular Florio restaurant on Fillmore Street in Pacific Heights.
"I only hope that my marriage to my partner for life, John P. Carroll, will still be considered valid and legal," Castanon explained.
With the court's decision to retain the legal status of 18,000 same sex marriages, Castanon's marriage is still one for the books, and will remain that way -- whether anyone likes it or not.

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A Big Turn-Out for Brian O'Neill, Already Terribly Missed in the Presidio -- Marina Times, June 2009

2009-06-10T10:47:00.000-07:00

Everybody liked Brian O'Neill. If you didn't get to know him, that's a shame. Brian was the Superintendent of the Golden Gate Recreation Area for 23 years. He died on May 13 from troubles that occurred after heart surgery. Brian's presence was unforgettable. He dealt with people in a way that was disarming. One might leave his office, after chatting with him in some earnest way, and consider how grand he was. Then it might occur to you to wonder why you went there in the first place, even if one was armed for debate. That's disarming.
Yes, sometimes you might stride away from the Parade Grounds feeling good about something, after you talked to him. It wasn't all blarney, it seemed very reasonable. Brian personified a certain sort of soul in the Presidio, much like the dedicated men, and women who worked under his aegis. That includes the myriad members of his staff, including the U.S. Park Service.
The walk in his honor was an inspired idea. Brian would have liked this. The gathering was arranged on May 29, with scores of people sauntering with high spirits over Crissy Field. It was a walkabout in his name, on the property that he loved so much. This was Brian's part of the world. It's still his world.
There was a certain artistry to the way he engaged people. He had to tread the treacherous path amid the politics that pervade the Presidio. He navigated that course very well, always conciliatory, but never compromising himself. He was no pushover. To think his amiable way of carrying himself suggested otherwise, well, then, you've made a mistake. Brian was a pro. He stuck to his guns, yet he was skilled, and smart enough to see a diplomatic entrance into a dire disagreement that appeared untenable.
He also had great Irish charm, never taking himself too seriously.
"This job gets a little rough," he told this reporter years ago, "but, make no mistake, I love it."
He also loved the Presidio and all the people in it. That affection will be missed on this windy landscape. One was never sure if Brian was speaking on the record or off the record. He had a knack of making you agree with him, in either case. After a conversation with him, you might think, "Did I just get snowed?" No matter. Brian played all the nuances, and all the ambiguities of local politics with a deft hand.
That walk on Crissy Field in Brian's honor wasn't really a memorial for Brian O'Neill. It was more about a testament to living. He had the decency to take pains to make sure the rest of us are having a good time.

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Bellingham by the Bay, San Francisco Northside, June 2009

2009-06-10T10:43:00.000-07:00

If you stand on the deck of the USS Pampanito, the World War II submarine at San Francisco's Pier 45, and don't get a lump in your throat, nor a tear in your eye during the Memorial Day ceremony for the Lost Sailors, then I'd think your doctor would be hard-pressed to find your heart. There's a gentleness to the tide to undulates under the feet as high tide came in that Monday afternoon. It belies the racket that wartime must have created. On Memorial Day, there was only that sweet sort of battering against the hull of the boat, that encourages you to hold onto the ropes. just to avoid a bruise on the knees. No such gentleness in those days, just 65 years ago. The only turbulence these days, it seems, might be found in the struggle to get clam chowder ahead of the crowd at Alioto's. It's astonishing to think this magnificent steel machine, called a boat, could actually do all the things she did, that is, to dive below the waves, fire large underwater missiles, and save 73 war prisoners who were floating in the unforgiving Pacific Ocean for two days or so. One sailor died later died on board. They used to call San Francisco the headquarters for the Pacific Theater, during World War II. Some theatre. There's no business like show business, and those sailors got lost so we can stay in business. ...

Meanwhile the Governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, says he'd like to sell San Quentin to raise a little money for our languishing Golden State. And why not? Mickey Rooney, who's running for state treasurer (Racing Form jammed in his pocket), might exclaim, "Hey, let's paint up that old state prison, and put on a show!" ... Sharon Anderson, a close friend of this newspaper, and a damned good guitar player, is putting on her own show right now, coming to a town near us. It's called Oblivion Newton-John. That's all right. I'll hold her jacket for her. My oblivion has already arrived. ... More show biz: Michael Dixon, the host of the KCBS Radio News Magazine in the old days, winged into town this Memorial Day weekend to collect his Doctorate of Divinity from the S.F. Theological Union. Michael says he was amused, and touched, when the right reverend Lewis Rambo, bestowed the honor on him, saying, "You are now a physician of souls." Does a doctor of divinity do house calls? I asked Michael. Mr. Dixon -- sorry, Doctor Dixon -- has too much class to respond to something that declassé. ... Oh, speaking of painting things, then putting on a show, the Great Star Theatre, that indomitable fixture in Chinatown at 636 Jackson Street, is getting a new lease on life. At least a new lease. They still have classical Chinese opera there four times a year. The young, ambitious George Kaskanlian, and his partner, Kenny Montero, have taken out a 10-year lease on the place. This is what they have in mind for the opening this month: They booked the Primitive Screwheads, who are happy to splash you with fake blood while you're seated in the audience. Tickets are 20-bucks per person. You'd think for that money, they'd provide real blood. "Some people wear white just for the experience, then have dinner afterwards." Great thing about Chinatown: lots of good restaurants, and lots of good dry cleaners. Slain in the spirit, I suppose. ... If you wander up the street to North Beach, you’ll notice some good things going on. One is the restored, and wonderful Washington Square Bar & Grill. Under the guidance of Susan & Liam Tiernan, the place has been returned to good music, and lots of good cheer. Liam by the way, is a terrific musician, and has the good sense to hire other good players, such as Tim Hockenberry, Terry Disley, Mike Greensill, and Michael Udelson. Michael, the latter, played piano at the Four Seasons Hotel for many seasons. They weren’t seasoned enough to keep him. But The Square has him now. … By the by, there’s been talk about Frank McCourt, the eldest brother of Michael McCourt, who’s pouring drinks for the Tiernans. Yes, Frank’s been sick with cancer, but the masterful doctors in New York are taking great care of him, he’s doing quite all right at age 78. But more news on the Mighty McCourts, Malachy, another impresario of storytelling, broke his leg. I’d likely say to Malachy, “that’s what you get for kicking your friends,” but I’ll wait until he feels better before he thinks that’s funny. …
The San Francisco Film Festival was a great success. It’s always great to the see the local cognescenti kicking about. I once said to Phil Kaufman,” I liked that film you made about the Marquis de Sade.” Phil shot back: “Yes, The Marquis de Sade knew how to get the ball rolling." I’ll say. … There’s no way I may get away without saying something nice about Kim Nalley. Kim checks in from New York City to say that she pays homage to one her many heroes, Nina Simone, at the Great American Music Hall, 855 O’Farrell, June 6. One of the many endearing things about Kim Nalley is that she embraces a panoply of hero figues for her. Another is Billie Holiday. Kim’s reworking her wonderful show about Lady Day at the Rrazz Room, Aug. 20 – 23. …
Catch up on the wry: Joyce Maynard, the Marin-based writer who spilled the beans about her intimate friendship with the hyper-reclusive author, J.D. Salinger, is currently dating Steve Little, the overnight weekend anchor at KCBS. If you think I'm going to make a joke about overnight weekends, well, forget it. The New York Times once described Maynard as "the Lolita of all Lolitas." By all accounts, Joyce & Steve make a very happy couple. This is their little secret. ...
Isn’t it fun to engage in a little cheap gossip? Yeah, I know, a certain sweet salaciousness to it. What can I tell you? We do get our feet muddy on occasion, even in this high-toned column. All suggestions are welcome at bruce@northsidesf.com ...

No Rest for the Disgruntled ... Marina Times -- June 2009

2009-06-10T10:40:00.000-07:00

If anyone is out of sorts, or worried about the North Koreans shooting missiles at us, I suggest a walk by the water. There one may find a certain solace in the salty, rambunctious scent of the sea water. It must be the sound of the lapping of the waves that provides a lullaby for all of us -- even for someone like me, who's far too old for lullabies.
Come to think of it, I don't think I ever heard any lullabies as a child. I don't recall my Mum hovering over me, singing melodies by Brahms. I doubt if Brahms ever heard them either. That's why he had to write them.
But if we are lulled into a sense of insecurity, then I guess the fault lies in us, not in the stars. Not even those splendid stars that we see over San Francisco Bay as we walk by Crissy Field. Sailors used the stars for navigation. Perhaps we might go back to the stars for a sense of guidance. There's a rhythm to the waves that dash up to beat the rocks down here near St. Francis Yacht Club.
It's funny how things that you love may often erode what we thought were solid. That relentless punch of the salt water breaks us down sometimes. It's a quiet sort of murder. We don't feel a thing. There are so many pleasurable, and painless things about San Francisco. No wonder the rest of the country hates us.
And there's the lullaby of the sea, the Bay's best briny that briny can provide.
Just a moment. This is not a gloomy dispatch. Not at all. There are those stars on this very early Tuesday morning. The dazzle thorough the mist. And it's early. The sun's not up yet. The stars are still visible. They never seem to go to sleep. I think I know why the stars are there. Just so I may look up once in awhile, and stop staring at my shoes. If you can call these sneakers shoes.
You see, when you look down, then we might look up, again, and then find a middle ground. The landscape that is right here in front of us. That's the ground that people were walking on this Memorial Day weekend, shivering in their seersucker suits, poor things. For all of the San Francisco chilliness, people looked happy, not so disgruntled at all. On the contrary. I notice these days that people are showing more affection for each other, they cling to themselves in a way I had not noticed before. People will always be in love. It's reassuring. I think it's a good time to be in love. I guess there was never a bad time to be in love.
I now recall a story from my music school days. Brahms, yes the cat famous for the lullabies, was in love with Clara Schumann. I guess that was a bad time for him to be in love because she would not return it, whatever that means. Like a rejected letter to the post office. But he loved her, he did, loved her fiercely, and decently. Here's the trouble: she was still married to her dead husband, the great Robert Schumann. He was a wonderful artist, and he drowned himself in a river.
The great composer of lullabies, Johannes Brahms, never got a good night's sleep after that.
I'll bet he was never sorry about being in love, even with the recalcitrant Clara. As a great composer, he did most of his work while staring out the window before dawn. I'll bet he'd catch a glimpse at the stars, and maybe take a walk by the water. You see, that's the real task we are left with, to come down here to the Marina Green on a blustery morning like this, and listen to the melody of the waves. There's a quiet turbulence to the motion of the water.
Now, that's a real lullaby.

Bruce Bellingham is the Arts & Entertainment Editor for the SF Northside. When he's not meandering near the shoreline, he's adding stories to his book, "The Pitchfork People." Torment him at bruce@northsidesf.com or at 415-346-2593

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The Ballad of Susan Boyle

2009-04-24T12:40:00.000-07:00

It's been difficult not to see and hear the new Scottish singing sensation, Susan Boyle, on the television, and on YouTube. You're even less likely to encounter a negative take on this show biz phenom. Except here. The much-heralded, treacly tune that Susan Boyle of Blackburn sang (and sings and sings) -- with the obligatory pop vibrato -- is wretched. Must be Andrew Lloyd Webber. There's no doubt Ms. Boyle has a real instrument. I'm sure she's a nice lass. Meanwhile, business is good at the Stable of One-Trick Ponies. Ms. Boyle is being used shamelessly, and I certainly hope she has a good time of it. The triumvirate of judges on "Britain's Got Talent" smirked at her plain looks, then launched into near-hysterical praise after she sang a few notes. These three heavy-handed ayatollahs of the British pop landscape shrieked -- one even wept -- as if they suddenly came across a cure for acne.
"Sadly it all Boyles down to image," said Miranda Sawyer in a cute commentary piece for the Daily Mirror.
"No woman gets to perform publicly unless she looks like Mariah Carey. If you're a female singer, you are required by show biz law to appear sexy at all times."
Tanya Gold, writing in the Guardian, asked: "Is Susan Boyle ugly? Or are we?"
Those are legitimate observations -- but they miss the point. The whole freak-show patina of "Britain's Got Talent" and its American cousin, "Idol," creates its own culture that's disturbing, and rather ill-making. It can apply to reality TV shows, too. It's an all-out rush for bathos. As Rod McKuen said to me, "The producers of "American Idol" (and "Britain's Got Talent") have a lot to answer for." A systematic lowering of any reasonable artistic standards. I think of the singers in the San Francisco Opera's Merola Program (true, young operatic talents). Some will never be on TV, perhaps never even perform on a major stage. Network TV goes open-mike, like Russian trawlers who scoop everything out of the sea. In this case, they throw the good ones back. Carrie Underwood? Entertainer of the Year? Who would have imagined? The fix is in.
The "ugly duckling" element in Susan Boyle's story is equally unsavory, and manipulative. Very unkind. Simon Cowell, a sly operator in the Roger Ailes & Rupert Murdoch & Bernie Madoff tradition, is a thug. Like the bankers who cheated us all, he's rewarded richly for rotten behavior. Not only are there few words of protest in response to this arrogant flim-flam, there's an international call for more of the same rubbish. Give us more, give us more. Give us Barabbas.
Susan Boyle doesn't need a makeover. Cowell does. Please make him civilized.
Just a moment. Let's think about this. Perhaps this a trend we can can get in on. Let's find a Tom Jones-sound-alike singer (with maybe a few intonation problems, a bit-off-key, the producers like that, it shows their contempt for the audience). He won't look like Tom Jones. He'll look more like a Cro-Magnon Man -- scraggily-haired, unshaven, stooped over, draped in burlap -- who's also never been kissed. At least not by a human. He's been living in a shack, undetected for years, with his stamp collection, and his gerbils. We'll get him to audition for "American Idol." Are you game? We can concoct a bio for him. Yes, we'll claim that he was discovered by a farmer in upstate New York who dug him up in a cornfield, not far from the place where The Cardiff Giant was reportedly, and apocryphally unearthed all those years ago. He'll need a name. How about Barabbas?
Let's write a song for our new discovery, "I'm So Loathsome, I Could Cry."
Isn't it great to know that one great hoax can inspire another? You'd think that after eight years of deception, mendacity, & malfeasance, we'd be wary of hoaxes.
Apparently not.

###

A Gentleman Is Never Unintentionally Rude

2009-04-24T09:52:00.000-07:00

Bellingham by the Bay -- Notes from San Francisco

An online petition, Save the Tonga Room -- savetonga.com -- is making the rounds. Word on Nob Hill is the people who run the real estate division of the Fairmont Hotel are about to convert the rooms in the Fairmont Tower into ownership units. There's talk of shutting down the legendary Tonga Room. Or maybe move it. The petitioners have collected 1,094 signatures at this writing. They ask locals to call the Fairmont corporate offices to protest: (416) 874-2600 or send an e-mail to comments@fairmont.com or to gavin.newsom@sfgov.org.

In an age when we are witnessing the waning influence of daily newspapers, it seems a star has been born in the world of print. It’s Jennifer Wadsworth, a young reporter from the Tracy Press, in Tracy, Calif., who broke some of the bigger stories surrounding the murder case of 8-year old Sandra Cantu.
Jennifer has gained national recognition. She’s writing her updates on the crime, which has riveted people round the country, on The Daily Beast. She also gave a long interview to the ubiquitous & belligerent Dr. Phil, discussing the murky side of the human spirit. Murk always works. … Is there more bad news these days than usual? Many are asking that. The news has always been bad for someone in this world of suffering. Years ago, when I worked in radio, I was hired to do stories for something called The Good News Network. They quickly went out of business. …

Speaking of business, Police Chief Heather Fong seems to be at odds with Sup. Bevan Dufty and the Entertainment Commission because the commissioners want to the power to extend bar & nightclub hours – on a temporary basis – beyond the mandatory 2 a.m. closing time.
Wouldn’t it help the economy to keep the pubs & clubs in S.F. open 24 hours, as they were before World War II, when the town was an “Open City”? Besides, people don’t have to get to bed early anymore – they don’t have any jobs to go to in the morning. …

The boys and girls at Le Beau, the popular grocery store on Leavenworth & Clay, are certainly working hard these days. “Le Beau is a jewel on Nob Hill,” explains Tom Wolfe, the storied concierge at the Fairmont. The place is a nexus of social activity on the Hill. Owner Joe Omram constantly plays great oldies on the house Victrola. Morgan Hamm and his crew, including Drew Stevenson, have turned the deli into a first-rate charcuterie. I’ve been watching the API – the Angus Price Index. The price of the ground beef at Le Beau has remained at $4.99 a pound, economic crisis notwithstanding. I took my discounted bag of spuds to the check-out the other day. “Recession potatoes,” I said to James Francis Abrams, who was working the register. He quipped, “The Irish do well in a recession.” Let’s hope so. …

I’m happy to report that Rod McKuen has contributed a terrific piece of verse to this issue of the Northside. I told Rod about an item on Page Six of the NY Post – another good reason to deport Rupert Murdoch. It asks: “Was Cool Hand Luke a hot-headed drunk and womanizer? Shawn Levy's new bio, Paul Newman: A Life, portrays the late Oscar- winner as a functioning alcoholic who, wearing a bottle opener on a chain around his neck, put away 'beer after beer after beer, a case or more a day,' followed by the hard stuff, usually scotch. … Mort Sahl recalled him filling a brandy snifter with ice and scotch and sipping it in a steam room.”
McKuen notes Newman’s great film work & his extraordinary generosity.
Writes Rod: "Of course the day Rupert Murdoch’s rag can give us half as much pleasure as any single Paul Newman film or he personally (with all his wealth) delivers a 10th of the amount of the late actor’s sizeable contributions to charity will be a very cold day in whatever hell Murdoch is headed toward. But wait a minute; hasn’t this blowhard already given us Hell on Earth? I think it’s spelled F O X N E W S."

I only wish I could have had the chance to drink Scotch in a steam room -- or anywhere else -- with Paul Newman. Though my Mum was from Glasgow, Scotch is the one drink, however -- likely the only drink -- that I could not stomach. I went back to New Jersey, still in my early 20s, to visit her all those years ago. One evening, I went out with my hometown buddies, and the Scotch & the Drambuie began to flow at the local bowling alley where, as a kid, I thought only derelicts drank. Funny how self-image can quickly change.
I came back to Mum's house late in the evening, reeking of Johnny Walker Red. (My Scottish grandfather was named Johnny Walker -- kid you not. He was a pub musician in Glasgow and reportedly a lifelong teetotaler.)
At the house, Mum heard a crash from the bathroom.
She called out, "Bruce, are you all right?"
"Sure, Mum," I shouted back.
She did not know that I was speaking while standing on my head in the bathtub, where I had landed, upside-down. No more Scotch after that. …

Paula West will be singing with the San Francisco Girls Chorus at the First Congregational Church in Berkeley on June 5, and at the S.F. Conservatory of Music, 50 Oak St., on June 6. … I don’t know why I think this is a good idea, but I’d love to hear the Girls Chorus sing an evening of Beach Boys songs sometime. Just a thought. … Perez Hilton owes Miss California an apology, regardless of her position on same-sex marriage. “A gentleman is never unintentionally rude,” observed Oscar Wilde. I guess Perez meant to insult her but he’s still no gentleman. … By the way, where is Paris Hilton? Did the party gigs dry up or did we lose her in the stock market? I thought we’d always have Paris. … Sharon Anderson says an indictment of Dick Cheney would be a better birthday present for her than dinner at Scoma’s. … We all have a wish list. Norm Goldblatt confesses, “When I was a teenager, I had no self-confidence. I used to fantasize in the third person.” …

Niel Mortensen reminds me that it’s been 40 years since the John & Yoko Bed-In in Montreal. That city is celebrating this summer. Speaking of Montreal, that reminds me of a famous Groucho story.
“I was in Montreal. I made a quick exit out of the elevator. A priest comes up to me, puts out his hand, and says, ‘I wanna thank you for all the joy you’ve put into this world.’ I shook his hand, and I said, ‘And I wanna thank you for all the joy you’ve taken out of this world.’” I can’t top Groucho, so we’ll leave it at that. …

Bruce Bellingham is a columnist for the Marina Times, and Media People. He’s also a restless person who haunts regions rife with the tantalizing undercurrent of menace & crime. He needs your guidance: bruce@northsidesf.com

###

Inside Marilyn Chambers, Outside Miss California vs. Perez Hilton

2009-04-24T09:13:00.000-07:00

My brother Jack sent me a note: "One of your porn buddies is dead." Marilyn Chambers, the Ivory Snow Girl-turned smut star, had died in Los Angeles. She was 56. Truth is, I did not know Marilyn Chambers. Yes, I had some contact with the Mitchell Brothers, Marilyn's benefactors (if that's the right word, and it's not) in the old days. I wish I had met Marilyn. I never heard a bad story about her. I'm told she was very sweet. The porn business is, and was rife with brutality. I think about the pain that was inflicted on her. I sure hope she had some fun along with it. When I first came to San Francisco, the young male denizens (and a few females, too) would brag about their salacious conquests. What was missing from the news stories about Marilyn's death is this: porn in the 1970s was part of the fervent insurgency that was a hallmark of the time. That's partly why it was attractive to restless, young people looking to rattle the status quo. Shocking the public was one method. Porn was as political as it was prurient.
Is the world a better place for having Marilyn Chambers? I dunno. It's certainly not a better place without her.

Now that "Firing Line" is no longer on the air, and the deadline for "Bill Moyer's Journal" had passed, it's a good thing we have the Miss USA Pageant. This is where political and social topics of the day can now be examined.
As one floor manager barked backstage at the contestants during the competition, "This is not your mother's beauty pageant!"
Too bad.
My mother would have insisted that Perez Hilton not be invited, not be a pageant judge, and certainly may not use the towels.
I'm referring to the now-famous dust-up between Perez Hilton and Miss California, Carrie Prejean. Unfortunately for Ms. Prejean, she randomly picked his name to pose a question to her as millions of TV viewers watched. He eagerly asked her what her position was on same-sex marriage. She uneasily explained her family background and religious instruction compelled her to believe that only men and women should be married.
It was a no-win consequence for her. She didn't win. She came in second. Hilton certainly voted against her, perhaps other judges did, too. She told Matt Lauer on the following Monday on the "Today" show that she knew her dream to be Miss USA was over the minute she answered the question. She explained, gracefully, at the pageant, that she meant no offense to anyone, but this is what she believes, and she will not compromise her resolve.
Is that not called freedom of speech? It also takes guts.
Perez Hilton, the man with the preposterously manufactured name, promptly uploaded a video on his site where he called Ms. Prejean a "dumb bitch." I guess that form of free speech is acceptable to many. It didn't faze many in the enlightened world of show-business.
Perez Hilton calls himself "queen of all media." I guess he wanted to wear the tiara.
What did she say?
Hilton asked her: "Vermont recently became the fourth state to legalize same-sex marriage. Do you think every state should follow suit. Why or why not?"
Prejean paused for a moment then said, "Well, I think it’s great that Americans are able to choose one or the other. We live in a land where you can choose same-sex marriage or opposite marriage."
She continued: "And you know what, in my country, in my family, I think that I believe that a marriage should be between a man and a woman."
I'm not sure what she meant by choosing "same-sex marriage or opposite marriage." You can't. That's the issue.
Aside from this rhetorical cloudiness, Hilton decided to exploit the moment with a well-designed ambush on the gal, and derive all the publicity he could out of it in his typically crude fashion.
In Hollywood, one might not recall that Prop 8, California's anti-same-sex ballot measure, was approved by a majority of voters in California last November. The state remains just about split on the issue.
"Hollywood isn’t just liberal, it is fearfully liberal. It is easier in Hollywood to say you’re a drug addict or to pretty much anything than to admit to being a committed Christian," Hollywood publicist, Michael Levine told FOXnews.com.
Despite media reports, Perez did not do his cause any good. He said, "Miss USA is supposed to represent all of us." He's kidding, right?
It's a very touchy topic. Perhaps the pageant's owner, Donald Trump, should have rushed in to lecture us all on the sanctity of marriage.
The would-be, could-have-been Miss USA did what she was supposed to do: remind us there is such a thing as free speech. Free speech trumps, if you will, gay marriage -- or any other kind of marriage -- any day.
And, Perez Hilton, wash your mouth out with designer soap -- and don't use the towels.

Bruce Bellingham is also a columnist & arts writer for the Northside newspaper in San Francisco He has an idea for a new book. He'd like to call it A Brief History of Time. We think the title's been taken already. But that's all right, it's not likely Bellingham will find the time to write it anyway. Advise him: bruce@northsidesf.com

###

A Portrait of Pat Kelley by Bruce Bellingham

2009-04-06T20:16:00.000-07:00

Pat Kelley: The Face of the PlumpJack Dream

When it comes to telling stories, few can beat the vivacious Pat Kelley, who knows just about everyone in San Francisco.
"She's the exquisite Rolodex," says the legendary politico Hadley Roff, who has worked for six San Francisco mayors and now consults for the Political Science and Urban Affairs departments at San Francisco State University. "Without Pat Kelley, the character of the Balboa Café would be lost."
Over the years, columnists have quietly called Pat to ask her the "what's what" and the "who's who." It's a rare day when she doesn't have an answer. If she doesn't have an immediate answer, she'll graciously call back and rattle off a list of names and a constellation of characters that require a scorecard to follow. Fact is, Pat is one of the most fascinating of all San Franciscans on her own merits. Splashy and dazzling in her ingenue days, she takes her place among the local legends over the epochs, such as Alma Spreckels, Lillian Hitchcock Coit and Lola Montez.
She's played the part of courtesan and eminence grise. She gives the term "working girl" new meaning.
Yes, Pat was known to dance on the bar, martini glass in hand, until the cows came home. Her old friend, Herb Caen, would describe her as "the blond bombshell" or simply, "La Kelley." Sure, she could put away the martinis. But now, she's put them aside.
Today most people know Pat as the poised, graceful woman with the twinkling eyes and the elegant scarves who seats people for lunch at the Marina's storied Balboa Café -- a nexus for politicos, socialites, the shamelessly successful, and the rest of us. The current incarnation of the Balboa is part of the PlumpJack Group that was founded by Gavin Newsom. Among the investors are Gavin's childhood chum, Billy Getty, and various members of the Getty family. Gordon Getty is the patriach. At first glance, Pat appears to be a highborn lady who has a hostess gig in order to occupy her days and mingle with her well-heeled Pacific Heights friends.
That's not the case. Pat has made and lost fortunes without benefit of inheritance or husbands. She has always worked hard; was a "single mom" and a "career woman" -- before the terms were invented. In fact, she was the first female stockbroker in San Francisco and was one of the most successful real estate people in town. She achieved that through a combination of smarts, charm, and absolute fearlessness. She modestly calls it "naivete."
"I never really knew about the big picture," says Pat. "that I might have been ahead of the pack."
It was 1962. Tired of her meager wage at Allstate on the Peninsula and with a child, she went to the personnel manager to ask for more money. Pat was told she would not be able to go any higher in the company because she was a woman.
"When I asked about being a manager, a higher level, I was told that women weren't managers," Pat recalled. "The woman in personnel was stunned when I quit. I had no child support, and now, no job."
In Menlo Park, Pat approached a small investment firm run by Sheldon Luce, of the famous family. Again, she encountered a woman in personnel.
"Any college?" she asked.
"No."
"Can't use you."
Pat came back the next day.
"How much typing?"
"Not much."
"Can't use you."
Determined, Pat returned on Monday and asked to talk to Mr. Luce. "He hired me," Pat says, "for my persistence."
That persistence rarely left her. Luce gave her advice, such as, "Don't read other people's theories and never tell anyone what you do for a living."
Then one day, she said, "Mr. Luce, I was thinking over the weekend ..."
"Don't ever think," he shot back. "If I wanted someone to think, I would've hired a man. Maybe you should be a stockbroker." He gave her a list of names.
She landed a job at E.F. Hutton. They sent her to New York for training. There were 100 men and Pat Kelley in the room. Pat became the first female registered stock representative in San Francisco. In the first year, she was third best producer in the San Francisco office.
"All the other stockbrokers wanted to get through the day and go home," Pat recalled. "But I'd stay in the office until eight o'clock at night, picking up all the walk-in business."
These days, Pat gets to the PlumpJack Management office on Fillmore Street at six in the morning. There she handles all sorts of paperwork for the company. At 11:30, she crosses the street to the Balboa and begins her "mayter-dee" (as Herb Caen would say) duties until late afternoon.
"Pat was really the backbone of PlumpJack at its birth," Judge Bill Newsom, Gavin's dad, said the other day. "She had the breadth of experience that Gavin and Billy lacked -- in retail, in wine, and in food. She still is the public face of the PlumpJack enterprise."
Since her E.F Hutton days -- she was a broker for 12 years -- Pat says it has all been "a kaleidoscope." She made lots of friends, went to lots of places.
"In 1970, I met Herb Caen and Billy Gaylord (crown prince of interior design), " Pat says, "I always had interesting friends who are interested in people, people who are doers. Harry de Wildt (Caen dubbed him "Sir Lunch-a-lot") would give parties two nights in a row and sometimes not even show up."
She went along when real estate mogul Vincent Friia would take 25 people to Paris to celebrate New Year's with a midnight supper at Maxim's several years in a row.
There were the best of times and it seems they couldn't be better. She took her stock money and bought real estate, was at the vanguard of condo-conversion, went into the wine store business -- she called the shops Crane & Kelley --and a hardware store at Polk & Pacific.
"I always wanted to own something that was somewhere between the Crystal Palace and Harrod's," she says. "So I created the Oakville Grocery with Joe Phelps (of winery fame). With that, another Crane & Kelley, and La Cuisine, a cooking school that included instructors such as Marion Cunningham, Carlo Middione, Marcella Hazan, Giancarlo Bugialli, Flo Braker, and Jeremiah Tower.
Pat and Jeremiah became an item. On a trip to Honolulu, they actually discussed marriage. Kelley recalls those days: "Jeremiah was going through -- how shall I say? -- an ambivalent stage. Back at the Balboa, I finally said, 'Jeremiah, I've been thinking. I really don't think we should get married.' He sighed and blurted out, 'Thank God!' in relief."
Tower, who lives in Merîda, Mexico, in the Yucatan, is now writing and consulting. He recalls cooking for Pat's dinner parties on Russian Hill and in Napa in the old days:
"Pat was the first high-flying member of some part of San Francisco's society to invite me to sit down to dinner at her table afer I had cooked the dinner, even when other people at the table, some of those flying in that town's highest circles were appalled to sit next to a cook. Later, of course, with my local fame as a superstar and chef, some from society wanted to sit next to me."
Pat says the Oakville Grocery was her dream come true.
"And it didn't even have parking." Her eyes sparkle as she speaks. "We had the best produce in town. We sold 100 kinds of mustard. Cyril Magnin came in every day. Then the union struck us over a dispute that was about our using novices. Genteel ladies did not like crossing a picket line and being called names like 'scumbag' by nasty people. It took them 18 months to put us out of business."
The real estate business also went south.
"I'm still not sure what happened, but I spent five years as a defendant, and wound up without a dime."
She went to work for Cliff Abbey, the St. Helena vintner, who then owned the Trattoria Contadina in North Beach.
Says Pat, "This was my college experience when it came to the restaurant business, from washing pots and pans to all the rest." Pat confesses she actually switched the place cards at a dinner so Cliff could sit next to her friend, Clare Boothe Luce, granddaughter of the famous playwright and congresswoman. Clare and Cliff, now married, "haven't been out of each other's sight since that night."
Yes, Clare is from the same family as Sheldon Luce, who gave Pat her a break in the finance world all those years ago.
She opened the Dixie Café for Tom Clendenning and opened Rosalie's on Van Ness Avenue. It closed. She reopened it as Rosalie's Redux with Harry de Wildt. It closed. "I think Harry accidentally wandered into the kitchen and recoiled at the sight of the butcher in a bloody smock. It was all over."
Pat went back to work for Cliff Abbey, producing jeans on Potrero Hill.
One day, Pat and Gavin had a chat at the Balboa about opening a wine store in the Marina. What would they call it? Gordon Getty had composed an opera called "Plump Jack." Pat thought it might be a good name for the shop, considering the Gettys were involved. After a protracted battle with some neighbors who didn't want another wine shop in the area, PlumpJack Wines finally opened.
Kelley retains undying respect and loyalty for Mayor Newsom. The feeling is mutual.
"Gavin is awfully smart, a self-taught businessman," Pat says. "He exudes honesty and loyalty. In turn, he expects commitment. We made it with pluck and hard work -- not always knowing what we were doing. Sure, we had advantages -- people wanted to see what the Gettys were doing. I was perfectly happy. Two years into the wine store, I hear from Gavin, 'We're going to buy the Pixie Café. I need a challenge."
That became the PlumpJack Cafe on Fillmore.
Meanwhile, Jack Slick and his partners, Cathe and Doyle Moon, were running the Balboa Café, which had been a funky neighborhood bar in the old days, frequented by sodden merchant sailors. Jack, Cathe and Doyle took it over and it became a very hip spot. Boz Scaggs, a friend of Slick's, was among many musicians often seen at the Balboa. Yes, Pat worked for Jack at one time, too. (Slick now owns a bar in Sacramento.) The Jack Slick days became quite notorious for his bizarre, rambunctious behavior. Herb Caen reported the time Slick dragged a man out of the bathroom with his pants down, holding a syringe. Slick screamed, "I don't want any junkies in my bathroom!" The man was a diabetic. The syringe contained insulin. The restaurant paid the man a $600,000 settlement. It was another blow to a foundering ship. Kelley suggested to Gavin that the PlumpJack people pick up the Balboa, that it could be as great as it used to be. They got it for a song.
Pat's not comfortable with the moniker of "kingmaker" but she's undoubtedly and relentlessly imaginative. One fateful night at the PlumpJack Cafe, Pat Kelley introduced then-Mayor Willie Brown to Gavin. Later, Pat nudged Willie with the notion of appointing Gavin to a commission. "After all," Pat said, "You gave Billy Getty a commission."
Mayor Brown appointed Gavin to the Parking and Traffic Commission. The rest is political history. Gavin was later appointed supervisor in District 2. Then he was elected to the office. When Newsom was elected mayor, he had to relinquish his PlumpJack holdings in San Francisco.
Today Pat has a 28-year old son, Kevin, a real estate agent at Sotheby's. Her daughter, Kathleen, 44, is married with three boys.
What's left for Pat Kelley to conquer? She might conquer the English lexicon. She has a passion for words. A dictionary remains open on the counter in the kitchen of her cozy Marina apartment. "I try to learn a new word every day. Aside from that, "I'd like to go another NCAA tournament. I'd like to meet Frederick Larsen (the Chronicle photographer); I want to have lunch with Lance Armstrong and Wayne Gretsky. I've met Domingo, Pavorotti and Joan Sutherland. Who's left? I'd like to get backstage and meet Donald Fagen when he comes the Paramount in Oakland on March 28th. There are so many challenges and wonderful things yet to do."

####

Maggie McCall: A Remembrance -- San Francisco Marina Times, April 2009

2009-04-05T11:50:00.000-07:00

Even now it's hard to imagine the Marina District without Maggie McCall. When I wrote for the Marina Times in those old days -- the late 1980s and through the 1990s -- Maggie was editor-in-chief & publisher of the neighborhood's chief voice.
Maggie's influence, and her drive were unquestioned. Her dedication to the Marina was fierce, relentless. After traveling the world, she came home to her turf, and dammit, she protected it to her level best.
Maggie McCall died on March 16 at Kaiser Hospital in San Francisco from complications of pneumonia and Alzheimer's Disease. She was 77.
She must have hated the slow deterioration that led to her death. Her daughter, Stacy Bobu, who ran the Marina Times for 13 years with Maggie, said her mom could not speak for the last two years of her life as she was remanded to convalescence in Marin County, and San Francisco. That's a terrible notion. Maggie, silent? Maggie loved to talk -- and was very good at it. She would engage people through her storytelling. She did not simply speak. She held forth. Maggie also never held back. Sometimes that would infuriate people.
When she wasn't expostulating or opining (some of her favorite words), she’d let the Marina Times do the talking.
She'd shout out in her own terms or let someone else vent, sometimes with a little less than reasonable restraint.
Maggie gave a loud voice to this small, contentious creature that's called a neighborhood newspaper. She believed neighborhood newspapers were as essential to The City as the 30-Stockton line; as vital as the power that illuminates the street lights; as important as the firefighters at Truck 16 -- even if she were occasionally setting the fire, in a figurative sense. All things of this nature worked in concert in the world of Maggie McCall. It's part of the design of a community. The Marina was Maggie's.
Maggie loved running her newspaper. Her passion was infectious.
She reminded me of those pictures of pioneers of publishing in the Wild West. That is, a green visor pulled down over the eyes, cuff protectors that keep shirtsleeves from being drenched in ink. You know, those old westerns where someone like Edmund O'Brien, playing the newspaper editor, recklessly defied the bad guys at his own peril.
Maggie, like the beleaguered defender of the free press, short of stature, would stand tall, stand up to anyone. Brave as the night, tough as nails.
Naturally this could cause friction. But most of the causes were right.
I would marvel at her indignation.
Let's see. It was 1988. I was a radio reporter at KQED-FM. I lived at Chestnut & Fillmore, above the Horseshoe Saloon, across the street from O Sole Mio restaurant & the wonderful House of Magic – that domain of tricks, the emporium owned by the inimitably crusty Mark Burger. He wanted all to believe that he he didn't believe in anything. But, you know, folks, he's a trickster. He was chronically disappointed because he believed in too much. Maggie loved him -- though Mark resists such supplications. Don't tell him I said all this, by the way. He might put a Santerîa curse on me. Santerîa? That only comes at Christmas, right? I guess I still believe in Santerîa, even if I still get coal in my stocking.
OK, Bruce, knock it off. Maggie would say that to me sometimes.
There were so many characters in the Marina in those days. It was fun to be here.
As I mentioned, as a radio reporter & local resident, I noticed that there was a neighborhood paper called The Marina. Then there was another paper, called the Marina Times. I sensed “newspaper wars” in the Marina District. So I made up a radio story about it. I talked to David Ish, who published a breezy paper, mostly about the outdoors. Then I found this woman, Maggie McCall, who had broken away from David, to start this paper, the Marina Times, that had a bit more of an edge to it. They fought like cats & dogs but became friends. I became their friends, too. But Maggie hired me to write a column. It’s a little disarming to interview someone & realize you are the one being interviewed. It happens.
Maggie gave me an introduction to what a neighborhood is all about. I thought the Marina was that “bigoted little village,” as Herb Caen described it. It’s that, for sure – but it is so much more.
Maggie told me about her times writing for Stars & Stripes in Germany, how she and her lovely & loving husband, Sam, a true hero of World War II, decided to travel around the world with their two young children, Ken & Stacy. That’s why they’re so oddly multi-lingual. Maggie also reveled in her time writing for Broadcast magazine in New York City. Broadcasting: another love we shared. When Mags, as I called her sometime, asked me to write a column, I could scarcely say no.
Then came the 1989 earthquake. A defining moment for the Marina. The neighborhood was plunged into darkness, and in many cases, despair. Some were hurt irreparably. Some died. For all of it, I never saw such compassion and generosity in my life. Pete Pallari, at O Sole Mio created a backdoor barbeque for a week or two. All the restaurants that lost power (we all did) simply brought their food to Pete and his friendly staffers and supporters, including Mario Macias. John Hizy was there. Johnny Brattesani (Steven, the dentists’s dad, and Steven’s wonderful mom, Mirella,) from Caesar’s Restaurant over in the Wharf, brought crates of food. Yes, they were all Marina heroes. Many more names come to mind – Gloria Fontanella, Maya Brouwer, the great people at La Pergola restaurant, the Wine Shop. Gee, it seems like it was only twenty years ago.
Yes, well, it was. The kindness poured out of people of the Marina like Chianti.
Pete Pallari said the other day, “Maggie saved my bacon.”
What does Pete mean by that? Stacy confirmed it.
“Lots of people had ads in the Marina Times, and had no idea how they got there,” says Stacy. “Well, they did not get there by accident. My mom placed them there free of charge. My mom believed in healing.”
Pete Pallari reaffirms, “After the earthquake, when I ran that soup kitchen out of the alley, I did not know what to do. We were about broke. Maggie ran item after item in the paper and people came back, and actually got to know us for the first time. Maggie and I stayed friends after that – right up until the day she got sick. I owe her a lot.”
No question many of us owe Maggie McCall a lot. I’m one. She was always after me for precision of language. I thought I could handle that one. Maggie tried to impart to me there was a precision of soul in writing. She also made me realize the whole world was her community, and that the world could be mine, and anyone’s who cared to seek it. No world was more profoundly close to her heart as this one --- the Marina.
The Marina was Maggie’s.
As you see, the Marina Times lives, thanks to the late David Ish, the present owner, Susan Reynolds, and the publisher, John Gollin. Remember: Maggie started all this trouble. I don’t know about you, but I thank my lucky stars for it. Oh, if you have any complaints, address them to the names mentioned above.
Mags might get a kick out of that.
Memorial services for Maggie McCall, according to Stacy, are pending.

#####

Bellingham by the Bay, April 2009, Northside San Francisco

2009-04-05T11:31:00.001-07:00

The Washington Square Bar & Grill finally reopened the other day, and it is a smash hit. There were more than a smashing coterie of North Beach locals, who appeared to be relieved that The Square (as the purists call it) had been given back to them. That's thanks to Liam & Susan Tiernan, the new owners. They poured a fortune into the new place to make it look authentically old. And it looks grand. Ernie Beyl even contributed a manual typewriter that belonged to Stan Delaplane to hang on the wall with the other old-time artifacts. Delaplane, the famed Chronicle columnist, used to hang out at the The Square in the old days with his pal & colleague Kevin Keating. Stanton the Great would surely love the restoration. To give his inimitable impramatur, Ed Moose dropped in at the re-opening day party. Ed started the Washington Square all those years ago. His approval was noted by all. Ron Fimrite -- one of the best sports writers in the whole wide world, and the author of The Square, the definitive authoritative bio of the tavern, came by that first week of revelry last month. Chris Barnett, one of the best travel writers in the whole wide world, said all seemed right again with the world. In an unrighted, uptight world, that says plenty.
Making things right behind the bar were the bar stars -- Michael McCourt, Michael Fraser, brought out of retirement, and Mitch Galbreath -- such a solid crew of salooners.

"It's so great to see them restored to their place behind the bar," observed Jerry Gibbons, one of the greatest ad men in the whole wide world.

"Like City Lights Books," said Neil Mortensen, "this is a cornerstone of culture." LIve music is back at The Square with Terry Disley & the dashingly talented Tim Hockenberry.

It made a few us wistful to note some of the characters who are missing these days. Of course, the eternal mentoring spirit of the Washbag is Herb Caen.

"I've got to tell you, Bruce," murmured Susan Tiernan, "the Chronicle called us. They want to celebrate 144 years of the Chronicle's existence -- that's cause of celebration any day -- and Herb Caen's birthday." On April 2, The Square will throw a party for Herb, now gone all of 12 years, by serving his beloved Vitamin V -- that's Stoli vodka. They will also proffer etched martini glasses at three-bucks a throw. A steal. There will also be Herb's books available. It's between 2 p.m & 6 p.m. I wouldn't miss it for the world -- the whole wide world. ...

It just hit me like a ton of bricks: how much I miss Herb Caen. One day, while we walked around the Marina with him, “Hey, Bellingham,” asked Herb, “what is your university experience?”

“Gee, Herb, you know I went to NYU for ten minutes. I’m really an autodidact.”

“I know what that is,” Herb shot back. “That’s when you drive yourself crazy.”

Quick he was. He didn’t like driving all that much, but he came from the generation that loved elegant cars. He had a Jaguar that he called The White Rat. It was useful for trips to the Wine Country. But Herb Caen really liked to walk around San Francisco. He knew back in 1939 that no one gets good items by driving down a highway. They call them freeways – though we’re still paying for them. Nothing is free in California.

Perhaps breathing is still available at a discount. That’s what I love about North Beach. You can walk down Columbus & smell the Bolognese sauce. It’s as natural as the scent of the sea breeze off the Mediterranean. Yes, Bolognese means tomato sauce with meat in it. Honest, I’ve been considering going back to being a vegetarian. Fat chance. I consider the lamb stew at the Big 4, and all bets are off. Let me set the record straight. Lips that have touched snouts and foreskins shall never touch mine, OK? We’re clear on that, right? … This I gutted from the New York Post: “Radical vegans — who avoid any product that comes from animals — are now buzzing about the evils of honey. They claim its production uses the labor of oppressed worker bees, according to a Time magazine report on the growing numbers of American vegetarians. And kiss a carnivore? Never. The survey revealed that 29 percent of committed vegetarians would refuse to kiss someone who just wolfed down a meal containing meat. The poll showed that 10 million Americans consider themselves vegetarians, while an additional 20-million people have flirted with a meatless diet.

But is it healthier? The jury is still out.

‘Vegetarians don't live longer, they just look older,’ said South Dakota cattle rancher Jody Brown. ‘If animals weren't meant to be eaten, then why are they made out of meat?’” … Herb Caen used to say gossip is the mother’s milk of journalism. So here’s more. Bruce Willis, truly a good guy, just got married again. His bride is a lingerie model. Does that sound familiar? That’s the height of maturity: to marry a lingerie model. The rest of us usually are reduced to just marrying the lingerie.

You know what Dorothy Parker said: "Brevity is the soul of lingerie."

Brevity often escapes me, but one has spaces to fill, as you know. I think I once wrote something about Tennessee Williams, and his lament about "the terrah of the blank white page."

Mad specter of the writer, the indefatigable scourge. Of course, I never really suffered from writer's block, as someone once asked me.

"What do you do about writer's block?" she asked.

"I think about the rent."

Not deterred by my flippancy, she persisted.

"You're a writer. How many words a minute can you type?"

She was a little on the hostile side.

I am serious, she actually asked me this.

I pretended to ponder it a bit, then said, "Oh, I think I can type about nine words a minute."

"Nine words a minute!?" she shot back with disgust. "You're kidding! That's all?"

"Yes, but they're very good words."

I hope they are. Otherwise, Herb would be, as he used to say, “pissed as hell.” Here’s to Herb Caen Day. He almost always picked his words carefully. Gawd, he loved this town. He really was the best in this whole wide world. San Francisco is the whole world to some of us. ...

Bruce Bellingham is the author of the book called Bellingham by the Bay. He also writes for the Marina Times & Media People. He’s working on a book, The Angina Dialogues. Go ahead, torture him at bruce@northsidesf.com.

When March Madness Becomes April Madness

2009-04-05T11:27:00.000-07:00

It's becoming increasingly challenging to produce an essay that does not portend disaster nor the imminent extinction of our species. Predicting doom seems to be the national pastime. It's a small consolation that no one can read the future. That would lead most of us to quit the game altogether. Now, now, I don't want to be a pundit. Nor a crepe-hanger. Nor a fortuneteller. There but for fortune go you and I. And fortunes seem to have eluded a lot of people lately.
I'll leave the punditry, and the acrimony to George Will, who thinks the new president is an outlaw. Mr. Will must be a lot of fun at cocktail parties. Anyone who wears a bow tie can't be all that much fun at cocktail parties.
I like the new president. Mr. Obama says we need a little gallows humor to get through the crises. There are more than enough persons willing to provide the rope for the hanging, but are a little slow in the joke-writing department. There are plenty of gallows, we're just short on the humor.
I'm willing to cast my lot with Barbara Azizo, who sent me a CD of the music that was performed at the Obama inaugural. It has a hopeful sound to it.
My favorite cut is the old Ray Charles version of "America the Beautiful." There's that line, "Love mercy more than life."
Obama seems to understand that the American Dream is more about giving than taking. Lord have mercy on us. God shed his grace on thee. If I keep up this faith-based rhetoric, I might even start to believe in God again. The United States is in a lot of trouble but we're not finished. We're only human. Well, at least part of the time. It's only human for Americans to want to be loved again. It's a good time to be in love. Even with ourselves.
"Yes, the night is like a lovely tune, take care, my foolish heart."
There's a solace in the quiet night in San Francisco. Oddly, it's a city that grows quiet in the late evening hours, when it has tired itself out through effort, exercise, and extravagance. Or even ennui.
Dr. Samuel Johnson said, "When you're tired of London, you're tired of life."
I feel that way about San Francisco.
But San Francisco's been looking a bit seedy lately, maybe a little tired, too. It's still a great town, but a little expensive. There but for fortune.
Yes, even the poor can be provocative and carefree. Sure, dance under the moon over Nob Hill, joust with the locals, jest with the tourists. Hustle this, hustle that.
What is poor? When you're out of dough? Out of resources? Out of choices?
You bet. All of it.
Slipping into poverty is a new, terrible thing for many. Yes, right here in San Francisco, this pretty outpost on The Coast.
The poor are not carefree. Not being able to pay the rent is a shackle around the ankles, like a suspect in cuffs.
It shortens the breath, it stifles the imagination, it crushes the ability to hope. It makes one avert the eyes from another, it makes one ashamed.
Shame is a powerful thing. It's an element that can control many of us. It's a built-in family foundation. It's more formidable than concrete. That can buckle, like the crumbling Doyle Drive. Not so a sense of shame. That's the the infrastructure of guilt that needs no repair. What it really needs is its own erosion. Why do we call them "guilty pleasures"? Why be guilty about feeling pleasure? I can't blame that notion on the Calvinists. All religions want to spoil our fun.
You see, the poor can afford dry wit. They cannot afford dry cleaning.
Now, these are abstracts. But there's nothing abstract about the sadness I see in San Francisco right now.
What is hope? It's a spark of energy. It's an inexplicable drive to move forward -- or at least get out of bed. It's a reason to have a reason to look up how to spell the word "inexplicable." That's inexplicable enough.
Some of us have this drive to explain things. John Gollin, the publisher of this paper, says business has never been better at the veterinarian's office. People hold their pets a little closer in bad times. Nervous people take comfort in other areas, too. Booze, drugs, cigarettes, and Campbell's soup.
Speaking of animals, I found this old P.J Corkey column from the S.F. Examiner. Here's a portion: "Regarding the trial in San Jose of Mark Gebel, the circus animal trainer accused of tormenting an elephant. Here's a report from Bruce Bellingham. 'Immediately after the jury returned its not-guilty verdict, the defendant Gebel jumped from his seat, rushed over to the jury box, and gave each member of the jury a treat, and patted them all on the head.'" I mention this silliness for no apparent purpose.
My friend, J. Bernard Kapok, could use a laugh right now. He's living in a bleak residence club since he hit hard times. Bernie Madoff talked him into a limited partnership, and it all went to hell. Madoff is a new sort of Robin Hood. He stole from the rich, and kept the money. Kapok says the house he's in was in disarray because no one could watch March Madness on TV. The telly's on the blink. Between you and me, I think they were using their converter boxes for religious purposes.
"We've taken to feeding the fish in the lobby tank as entertainment," reports the forlorn Kapok. "Last night some poor schmuck stood in front of the fish tank for 45 minutes, trying to change the channel."
Did you ever notice that the 30-Stockton bus always smells like mothballs? What does that mean? There are lots of strange odors on the bus. When I see passengers carrying canaries in cages, then I'll really get worried. The only thing missing on the 27-Bryant bus are the live chickens running up and down the aisle. Pilgrims cooking in the back of the bus. Mercenaries cleaning their carbines. ... Nothing outstanding -- except the warrants -- on the parole violator's express, the 27-Bryant, the bus that passes the Hall of Justice, and drops off the beleaguered folks who are headed to court -- or jail. This is the underclass coach. Further along the route, in the pre-dawn darkness, it stops at 5th and Harrison to pick up the dreary denizens of the shelter nearby. When the shelter is cleared at 7 in the morning, the souls spill out into the streets like unwanted pennies. Men, bearded, busted, worried; hollow women, tired beyond tired, faces creased with disappointment -- all carrying black plastic garbage bags like broken hearts.
Ah, but wait a minute, this was supposed to be a funny column. Something clearly has gone a awry. So wry it is.

Bruce Bellingham also writes for the Northside San Francisco, and has been making an effort to write a book called The Angina Dialogues. Authorship is the last refuge of a scoundrel. Give Bellingham a piece of your mind at bruce@northsidesf.com

###

Daisies On Cotton

2009-04-05T11:26:00.001-07:00

This column is called "Daisies on Cotton." Why? Because my girlfriend, Sharon, told me that she bought a spring dress from Betsey Johnson. It's called "Daisies on Cotton."
She sent me a pic on the Internet.
Very nice, too.
All dresses should have titles like that. I mean "Daisies on Cotton." Men do not have that luxury, if you will. Not so much a luxury but a temptation of dreary fate. That is, if I put on a suit, no one cares. They may call it "Sullen Man in Wool." Or worsted but wiser. Or "Sullen Yet Woolen." No, men, to me, are dull by nature. Too serious, too self-absorbed. I ought to know. I have three older brothers. Don't get me wrong. I love them. I just do not think I'll be discussing spring dresses with them anytime soon. They simply don't embrace that sense of fun. They have other ideas of fun. You know, boy things. Glasses of bourbon, plates piled high with rigatoni.
No, no, girls have the advantage. They certainly deserve it. They pressure's on them. That's why they get to play splashy in spring dresses that the catalogs describe as "Daisies on Cotton." Sounds like a Rembrandt, doesn't? And why not? When beautiful Sharon wears it, then it really is a masterpiece. The hem swirls around the the lovely legs when she kicks up her heels --- white go-go boots, by the way. Just for fun. It's a symphonic mania.
In that fun movement, I know that spring is finally here. Yes, I know when spring is here when my heart really goes dancing.
That's when girls and boys start to notice each other. The lungs fill with the breeze that tears up the hill here on Clay Street. The eyes of the kids are filled with wonder -- and with real lust for the first time. It softens the soul, it sweetens the vision. It also makes one truly interested -- not matter our age -- in "Daisies on Cotton."
Ah, there we cultivate our garden. I want to take care of this garden, but time is racing by. When your heart is dancing with spring, it seems to be the first time all over again. Remarkable, no?
Oh, yes, I call them girls -- without remorse nor apology. Girls will always be girls, regardless of age.
My grandmother was a girl to the end of her days. I miss her, and I was too stupid, too young to appreciate how much fun she wanted to have. I thought she was an old lady. She was a kid who played the piano at Carnegie Hall. She was funny. Nana gave me a harmonica. You want to to be my best friend? OK. Never call me "Nana." Well, not yet, anyway. Only on a spring day like today can I picture her in a cotton dress with daisies all over it. Yes, Nana was a girl.
Here's to all the great girls that we love. When they wear "Daisies on Cotton," they make everything grow more beautifully around us. When Sharon kicks up her heels, this moment in time is a spring forever.

Bruce Bellingham is the author of Bellingham by the Bay. He also writes for the Marina Times and Media People. His new book is called The Angina Dialogues.
Tempt him at bruce@northsidesf.com

#####

I Wonder If San Francisco Will Have Another Black & White Ball

2009-02-26T21:31:00.000-08:00

Black and White Ball Remains A Perennial San Francisco Treat
by Bruce Bellingham
from the archive of the Marina Times, 21 June, 2005

San Francisco's biennial Black and White Ball is a fixed point in an ever-changing world. Even if the Big Quake shakes the city to its foundations during June on an appointed year, there would likely be a way to put on the Black and White as scheduled, hell or high water -- though it might be the Black and White Bouncing Ball. The hard-driven organizers are that determined to let nothing slow them down. They use lots of tents anyway. In the event of a tsunami, maybe they'd construct rafts, too. It's unclear if Ball chairman Patricia Sprincin has considered any of this. She seemed too busy for us to pester her so we didn't ask.
This year the event drew about 10,000 partygoers. "That's about 2,000 more than the last time around," said Jon Finck, of Encore Productions. It cost about $200 a ticket -- unless you were between 21 and 30 years old. They knock 40-bucks off for the kids. It's sort of a reverse senior discount.
"They need to do things like that," said Mandana, a Pacific Heights hair stylist. "It's like the old Hollywood. The old social register types are fading away. There was a lot more elegance in the past."
The nostalgia was evident in the selection of musicians who entertained. For punks of all ages, the Violent Femmes tore it up. The group, Train, went roaring through. It seems that inviting The Village People to San Francisco is like carrying coals to Newcastle but they were certainly on friendly territory.
"I think the Village People are a little burned out," observed Sandra Stolz, a fine arts representative. "Then again, I guess we all are." But it was early yet. Most people consider the Village People harmless fun and that suited the mood of the evening. For those of us who can recall the 70s when the Village People were disco royalty -- that is, those who had to pay the full $200 for a ticket -- we got a chance to laugh at ourselves and the folly of our feverish youth.
At 9:30 p.m. Mayor Gavin Newsom officially opened the ceremonies on the City Hall steps as a curiously cartoonish light show began. The crowd scrutinized the Mayor's invisible date.
"I wish I had brought long gloves," sighed Sheila Von Driska, the graphic designer, who looked great without her gloves. "It wasn't until Patti La Belle came on that I decided I was happy I went. The event is just too big to meet people and really enjoy it."
The Mother of All Block Parties is bound to bewilder. It is sensory overload. "I had to leave early," said Maurice Kanbar, San Francisco's famed inventor and philanthropist. "It gets to be a bit too much."
Von Driska said she felt as if she were on another planet, in the middle of San Francisco. "Waiting in line for a cocktail, while dressed to the nines seems odd. Beer and bad red and white wine also didn't do it for me. If one is going to have a black & white ball, it needs to be accompanied by matching fare, or at least caviar and champagne. Not Krispy Kremes. But, the Patti LaBelle concert gave me chills. I've always loved her and I loved how she gave the mike to one of her backup singers. I loved how genuine she is."
Sandra Stolz was also impressed by LaBelle's generosity on stage toward her musicians but was a little unsettled by LaBelle's strange moods. There was hard-driving, ecstatic rhythm and blues but a touch of melancholic religious fervor was also tossed into the mix. It was almost riveting -- like watching snake-handling. With an intermittent patter about her long marriage and eight-year old divorce ("Just get rid of that man," she admonished the women in the audience), a plea for brotherly love and "bring the troops home," LaBelle finally sang a teary, histrionic version of "The Lord's Prayer" to a slightly nervous crwod. She seemed to be possessed by some sort of trance. Yes, slain in the spirit. It made for an interesting but hardly get-down-and-party performance. "It's all part of the show, folks." Aimee Semple MacPherson meets Etta James. But the Black and White includes so many wild mixtures. On that point, the bartenders were working at a breakneck pace as if Prohibition was returning at midnight.
Minnie Driver brought her retro-sixites folk rock band along and seemed to have a helluva good time tearing into the songs. The show and the food -- prepared by McCall Associates -- were a big hit at the Asian Art Museum where the Contemporary Jazz Orchestra Trio brought a sweet sophistication to a classy venue. The Indian food was terrific.
Mercedes-Benz was the main corporate sponsor and drivers transported guests around the Civic Center, if their feet were getting tired. It would be nice if they could do that for pedestrians all the time.
"This is our first time here," exclaimed a delighted Dr. David Agard, a bio-physicist at UCSF, over the din at City Hall, where players from the San Francisco Symphony with Michael Tilson Thomas were performing. "We are so pleased we came tonight." Nodding in agreement were his wife, Dr. Lisa McConlogue, and their friends, Stacia Topping and Lara Medanich.
The San Francisco Symphony's first Black and White Ball, under the guidance of Mrs. John H. Upton, predates the famous bash that Truman Capote hosted at New York's Plaza Hotel by ten years. Capote later said, "I invited 500 friends and made 15,000 enemies." The New York soiree in 1966 was described as "The Party of the Century." San Francisco has been partying since Sir Francis Drake and his crew dropped anchor and convinced the Miwok Indians to teach them how to fire up barbecued oysters.
By midnight, the spirits of the revelers were cooling a bit. Under a clear sky, with actual stars on a June night, if you can imagine, the gentlemen began the Black and White Ball end-of-the-evening ritual: to pick up their wilting dates with their throbbing feet and carry these beautiful, exhausted casualties -- with their new shoes clutched in their hands -- to the car, the taxi or the bus for that ride home to reality in the wee hours.
"Did you have a good time?" you could hear murmured as the couples shuffled by. "Hmmm." After all these years, one would be hard-pressed to recall anyone ever saying they were sorry they went to the Black and White Ball.

###

Happy 90th Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti

2009-02-20T01:30:00.000-08:00

I want to wish Lawrence Ferlinghetti a Happy 90th Birthday this March 24. It's a privilege for this writer to do so.

The good things Lawrence has done for San Francisco are incalculable. He ignited world interest in this town, recreated its literary life, and gave it a sweet insurgent character. He provided a rhythm to the Beats. Never really a so-called "Beat," Lawrence Ferlinghetti also found a way, through his business acumen, along with Peter Martin, to start City Lights Books. The store on Columbus draws people from all over the planet who are approach the spot as if it were a shrine. Who is not fascinated by the punchy, political messages on the posters along the top floor that face the street? Did Lawrence accrue his public relations savvy from the Vatican, I wonder? It’s startling to see young people grow suddenly reverent and quiet as they enter the City Lights. I guess it really is a shrine here in the City of St. Francis. Why not? It was engendered by a real visionary, gentle of spirit, who decries the oppression of innocents, and who was tough enough not to fall into the traps that gobbled up so many men and women of the Beat Generation. ( I know. Lawrence, and David Amram, and other people from that era around today bristle at that term, “Beat.”)

Hard to imagine a wild man poet/painter who issued the warning, "Don't let that horse eat that violin!," and living amid the feral, licentious cadre of artists during the chilly atmosphere of the 1950s, could actually be a real businessman. Lawrence made the lives of writers like Allen Ginsberg and Jack Kerouac indelible -- even legendary. And Mr. Ferlinghetti got arrested for his free speech effort, damn near got sent to prison. Yes, Lawrence was a cool cat who could actually keep his cool. His own book of poetry, A Coney Island of the Mind, changed my life and the lives of many others. It's a familiar story. I was a high school kid in New Jersey when a copy tumbled into my hands, (A trouble-making English teacher gave it to me. I'll never thank him enough). I was stunned. I had no idea that poetry could be this accessible -- or could be so funny. It gave me encouragement to write. Well, more precisely, he gave me courage to write – and not be afraid to look ridiculous or be someone “constantly risking absurdity,” as Lawrence said.

It also gave me an insurgent if not ridiculous notion to live in San Francisco one day. That's when my English teacher tried to talk me out of it. Too late. I was too far gone. Here I am, 39 years later, still here. Still a gone cat. Well, just gone.

When you walk into City Lights today, one of the first things you'll see near the front door is a rack of books about surrealism. It's a tabernacle to absurdity. And why not? Like Ferlinghetti’s heroes – Andre Breton, Philippe Soupault, Louis Aragon, and Tristan Tzara -- the surrealists were infuriated by the waste, and carnage of World War I. Their reaction was to produce outrageousness – bits of incomprehensible words, art that upset the senses of the sensible –even exhibit urinals in galleries. They met craziness with craziness. Or apparent craziness. Lawrence, serving in the U.S. Navy during the subsequent World War – as a lieutenant commander on a sub-chaser at Normandy -- was later stationed at Nagasaki just days after the atomic bomb blast. That was enough to sicken him for quite some time. What could be crazier?

Well, the next time could be. The next time an atomic bomb is dropped.

The first time I heard Lawrence’s voice was on an LP, a poem, read in a dry, plaintive, sarcastic tone, a meditation on the Cold War: Tentative Description of a Dinner Given to Promote the Impeachment of President Eisenhower, published in 1958.

Happily, the last time I heard Mr. Ferlinghetti’s voice was at LaRocca’s corner on Columbus a few months ago, warmly chatting up my brother, Paul. Lawrence, drink in hand, still has that mad gleam in his piecing blue eyes. He’s not crazy. The world is.

The poetic madness, the l’amour fou, and the mischief is still vibrating in Lawrence Ferlinghetti. It always was. In 1998, he was named San Francisco’s poet laureate, Lawrence wasted no time talking to people like me in the media, who he calls “the usual unreliable sources.” He took to the position like a duck to water – and started trouble right away. Ferlinghetti called for banning cars in the downtown area, digging up the old creeks and marshes throughout town to "restore the former riparian integrity," having Coit Tower lean a little bit: "Look what it did for the city of Pisa," permitting more "pirate" or underground radio stations and painting the Golden Gate Bridge gold. After all, it IS the Golden Gate, right?

Lawrence gave his last public reading at City Lights in Nov. 2007. He read from his latest book – an apparent benediction for those who might still be paying attention – Poetry As Insurgent Art. One hundred people jammed into the store to listen to his advice.

"Speak up. Act out. Silence is complicity," the poet urged.

"Question everything and everyone, including Socrates, who questioned everything." ... "Secretly liberate any being you see in a cage."

Happy Birthday, Lawrence Ferlinghetti, Buon Compleanno, we cannot thank you enough.

Fridays Used to Be So Great

2009-02-08T17:06:00.000-08:00

It's Furlough Friday! This is a new adventure, and boy, am I excited. Last month Governor Schwartzenegger closed down government offices in California. Case in point, the DMV -- yes, the Division of Motor Vehicles -- where one gets driver's licenses, their cars registered, and where one obtains a California ID card. The offices will be closed on the first & third Fridays of the month. If you've ever been to the DMV, you'll know this probably will not make any difference. But now, people will suddenly grouse about the DMV being closed. They used to bitch about its hopeless lack of service. Californians will get sentimental about the DMV office now that it's unavailable to us. Gosh, look, it's no longer there to abuse us. Not to worry: other negligent, ineffective agencies will abandon us in short order. One by one, they will quietly skulk away. We will miss them terribly. We’ll grouse about their callousness and their negligence – as if it were something new – but protest passionately about how functionaries don’t bother to treat its customers badly anymore. It's a terrible thing to be mistreated but, as the therapists say, at least it's familiar. It seems to me that we hunger for Stockholm Syndrome. I know I do: it's the closest I can get to actually visiting Sweden.
Or at least getting my hands on Swedish Meatballs. They used to serve those brown, nasty, glutinous, sublimely salty specimens in various Financial District bars at Happy Hour. "Knock it off, Bruce, some of my closest friends are Swedish Meatballs."
Just a moment. Everyone knows that Stockholm Syndrome is a psychological term for becoming emotionally attached to one's kidnappers. I'm taking it to a broader meaning, of course.
Sweden, now that I think about it, is likely more accessible to me. I suspect Stockholm would be friendlier than my adopted hometown of San Francisco. I wonder. Do people in Stockholm actually suffer from Stockholm Syndrome? Perhaps they call it something else. Or maybe they describe this pathology as San Francisco Syndrome. The other day I noticed that it had been 35 years since the Patty Hearst kidnapping. A better story, a reporter cannot dream of. Patty was literally the poster girl for all sorts of syndromes. When the gunfire finally subsided, Patty was in a federal courtroom in San Francisco, fighting for her freedom all over again. Her lawyer, F. Lee Bailey, tried to convince the jury that Patty was a victim of her terrorist kidnappers, and had been overcome by Stockholm Syndrome.
The jury did not buy it.
That's because they had forgotten their experiences at the Division of Motor Vehicles. Today, on this Furlough Friday, I'm sure the jury would have a change of heart. The truth of the matter is that we are all held hostage by one thing or another -- we're just afraid to admit it.
All of this gives me pause.
Let me think. I might even be able to drive a car in Sweden. Just don’t tell the already angst-ridden Swedes about it. I haven't had a driver's license here in California for more than 25 years. It's been so long, I can't remember if denying me a driver's license was my idea or an idea suggested by the authorities. It doesn't matter anymore. I think it was my choice. Walking trumps parking in San Francisco. All the same, I have to confess I have an irrational fondness for the DMV. Imagine that. The DMV has always been cold and dismissive to me -- yet I crave the attentions of this faceless bureaucracy.
This is what I'm going to do: before the next Furlough Friday flies this way, I'm going back to the DMV, stand in line, the longer the better, absorb the rebukes, and the chilly nonchalance from the mirthless, beaten-down employees -- if there are any left -- and wait for them to approve my new California ID card.
Not to worry: I have no intention of driving. We already have enough hazards hovering around us.
When I get the official proof of my identity, I can assert this: I am somebody! Attention must be paid! Ich bin ein Berliner! I have proof right here in my hands! But will it get me backstage to the Rufus Wainwright show?
Now, can anyone give me a ride to a joint that serves Swedish Meatballs at Happy Hour? You bet I'm buying. Baby, you can drive my car. Let’s go.

Bruce Bellingham, who also writes for the Marina Times and Media People, is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, published by Council Oak Books. He can be observed perambulating hither and yon over sidewalks in search of the next medical miracle that’s been bubbling up from the steam table in some unspeakably uneasy speakeasy. “Pardon me, this is the Barbary Coast, right?”

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The Big Digital Changeover: The FCC Preaches to the Not-Quite-Yet-Converted

2009-02-05T22:29:00.000-08:00

A new term has crept into the American lingo: "converter box." This is the device that will allow the primordial part of the population (and that includes me) -- the portion which does not subscribe to cable or satellite nor owns a new television set -- to be able to get TV reception after analog signals are discarded for digital.
Remember the old TV show, The Outer Limits?
"There is nothing wrong with your television set. Do not attempt to adjust the picture. We are controlling transmission. ... We repeat, there is nothing wrong with your television set. You are about to participate in a great adventure. You are about to experience the awe and mystery which reaches from the inner mind to ... The Outer Limits."
And reaches, perhaps, to dead air. Or, I'm told, more likely a snowstorm on the screen instead of a picture.
The great adventure of switching analog to digital has been in the works for years. But despite a huge push to inform the viewers of the land, the imminent switchover has taken millions of Americans by surprise. You'd think people were being distracted by other things -- like hustling to pay the mortgage, avoiding creditors, ducking the landlord, feeding their families, finagling a way to keep their jobs, and not being thrown out onto the street.
So Congress pushed back the deadline to shut down analog television signals in favor of digital until June 12.
This delay cut it pretty close to the original deadline of Feb. 17.
The Republicans in the House had already delayed the delay.
I shudder to think of where all those unwanted, antiquated, analogged TV sets might be dumped. Off the Jersey Shore? Or shipped straightaway to the burgeoning electronic wastelands in Africa.
Oh, that's another term that's new to a lot of folks: "analog." Most of us did not know that the world was divided into two camps: analog and digital.
I thought the world was divided into "on" and "off." This is awfully complicated for Luddites like me.
In the classic film, The Manchurian Candidate, Lawrence Harvey (as Raymond Shaw), observes: "There are two kinds of people in this world: Those that enter a room and turn the television set on, and those that enter a room and turn the television set off."
That's right. On and off. Ah, yes, life was simpler in 1962.
Gail Collins lambasted the way the government has bungled the changeover in her column for The New York Times (Jan. 30):
People who needed a converter box were supposed to request a $40 coupon, which could be used toward the purchase. The coupon was then sent to them by third-class mail — an interesting choice which sometimes meant the coupons, which expire in three months, did not arrive for four to eight weeks. The lucky recipient could then go to an electronics store, find the right kind of box, take it home and install it. (Just for fun, imagine the oldest member of your family doing this.)
The Republicans in the House ostensibly wanted the digital changeover right away because it means more revenue for the government.
I have my doubts. I get calls from cable companies champing at the bit for my business because so many consumers are signing up for cable or satellite service in order to avoid this converter box mishegoss. It's too much to think about. Quite a boondoggle.
Writes Ms. Collins:
In 2005, Congress voted to end analog broadcasting. The impetus was to raise money for the Bush tax cuts by selling off the emptied space. (Bad) But it also freed up lots of room for better Internet reception and public safety communication. (Good).
If you believe that, I've got three or four bridges to sell you. Politicians are constantly pitching us things based on the good that it will do us. It's malarkey.
I have deeper suspicions. It's more nefarious. I think the converter boxes might be used to convert us to something else. A religious conversion, perhaps, aimed at the so-called "under-served" parts on the citizenry. Now that President Obama has established an Office for Faith-Based Initiatives, my paranoiac visions might have more credence. Do we really know what these converter boxes are all about? If I get one, will I suddenly be compelled to watch Pat Robertson's 700 Club, broadcast in a dazzling diadem of a digital picture? I see it now. I can imagine thousands of enraptured, and otherwise disaffected Americans, swooning amid the switchover euphoria, standing at the precipice of a cliff, clutching their converter boxes, looking skyward, shouting to the heavens, "Where Is God?"
Let me catch my breath. Such exhilaration.
Oh, Gail Collins had more to say about those coupons:
Needless to say, the Republican-controlled Congress did not consider anything that socialistic in 2005. No, our plan was so deeply privatized that one DTV converter box retailer hired Joe the Plumber as a spokesman.
... Did I mention that once the government ran out of coupons, no new ones could be issued until the old ones expired? Or that people who didn’t manage to cash their coupons in before the expiration date couldn’t ask for a replacement?
Yes, I confess this happened to me. No coupon, no box, nowhere to go. I am now without a real TV identity, drifting between analog and digital, a man without a TV country.
I am bereft. I might take these useless rabbit ears, and try them out as a divining rod, searching for spindrift treasures in the landfill where those old, discarded television sets now reside.
I do like the idea, though, of Congress delaying action on this. Congress should be busying itself with delaying action on more things. Maybe on all things. Oh wise ones, just give us more time -- more time to pay to pay the mortgage, feed the family, delay the company's plans to lay us off. Give me Lara Spencer or give me death.
Henry Miller once wrote, "If you're in a restaurant, and don't have any money to pay the bill -- then keep ordering. You'll think of something."
Any ideas?
I have one. Let's replace Tim Geithner with Bernie Madoff. Maybe he can steal all of our money back.

Bruce Bellingham is a San Francisco columnist for the SF Northside, and is the author of Bellingham by the Bay, published by Council Oak Books. Tell him what he should know at bruce@northsidesf.com

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