In the Game

Psychic Dream Astrology: July 24 – 31, 2013

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July 24-30,2013

ARIES

March 21-April 19

You can’t find your intuition in a crowded room, Aries. When you get overwhelmed by others energies it will muddy the water of your instincts, making them unreliable. Take a step back this week so you can separate out what others want, think, and feel from your own experience and needs.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Mercury has finally gone direct and it’s time to get done all those things that got waylaid over the past month. Clean your house, empty your inbox and pay your bills this week. Tend to your basics so that you can deal with the more complicated stuff of your life with no distractions from your clear and focused mind.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

It’s hard to be powerful and unapologetic for what you are and not let it ignite power struggles. Enjoy your compelling awesomeness but don’t trample over the needs of others as you do. Learn about your ego as humbly as you can as you watch it in action. Put yourself in the other person’s shoes this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

The only way to win is to play, so get in the game, Moonchild! You are in the right position to make things happen, so don’t let caution become procrastination, or bravery become foolishness. This is a great week to actualize goals, clean up your messes and take well-considered risks.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

You can’t know how things are going to develop, Leo, and if you want to get answers you’re just gonna have to let them play out. It’s time to turn inward and to connect with your deepest truths. People and situations can be confusing but this is a good week to strive to tolerate uncertainties until they work themselves out.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

It’s not easy to be patient when your mind moves so quickly and you see so many paths at once, but that’s exactly what you must do this week. Trust that the steps you have laid out in front of you will bring you to your end goals, Virgo. You’re on the right track, even if things aren’t going as planned.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Its time to let go, Libra. You are changing and there’s no use in clinging to the past. The best you can do is to learn from the lessons that yesterday has to teach you and keep on moving. Don’t worry so much about what other people are doing this week; charge steadily ahead and the rest will follow.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

How you handle your affairs this week will have both a practical and energetic impact on your months ahead, Scorpio. Tie up loose ends with generosity; that means be nice to yourself and others as you facilitate closure. You’re on the verge of a new chapter, but first you should strive to end this one with grace.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Leave room for messiness, Sag. There may be helluv imperfections for you to focus on, but the most useful approach you can adopt this week is one of acceptance. Work with the complicated state of affairs in your life so you can avoid languishing in disappointment over what isn’t and make good with what is.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Things are opening up for you, Capricorn, so be open to new opportunities and pathways. Your life is going in a great direction, but a word of warning for this week is to make sure you take time for yourself. If you don’t pursue some down time to chillax in, you will find that you become exhausted and confused.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

This week its time to look deep inside and find the truth of what you’re feeling. Don’t reason with your heart; just investigate the realness you find therein. Some things need to change if you’re going to give yourself what you need, and only you can decide if it’s worth the struggle, Aquarius.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

The only way to change what you don’t like in your life is to be willing to change your self. This week you should not shy away from relating to your life differently. Check your habit of being agreeable when you totally disagree at the door, Pisces. No one appreciates compromises they don’t know you’re making.

 

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

The Fourth of July: Remembering the good old days in Rock Rapids, Iowa, circa 1940s to 1950s

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By Bruce B. Brugmann

(Note: In July of 1972, when the Bay Guardian was short a Fourth of July story, I sat down and cranked out this one for the front page on my trusty Royal Typewriter. I now reprint it each year on the Bruce blog, with some San Francisco updates and postscripts.)

Back where I come from, a small town beneath a tall standpipe in northwestern Iowa, the Fourth of July was the best day of a long, hot summer.

The Fourth came after YMCA camp and Scout camp and church camp, but before the older boys had to worry about getting into shape for football. It was welcome relief from the scalding, 100-degree heat in a town without a swimming pool and whose swimming holes at Scout Island were usually dried up by early July. But best of all, it had the kind of excitement that began building weeks in advance.

The calm of the summer dawn and the cooing of the mourning doves on the telephone wires would be broken early on July Fourth: The Creglow boys would be up by 7 a.m. and out on the lawn shooting off their arsenal of firecrackers. They were older and had somehow sent their agents by car across the state line and into South Dakota where, not far above the highway curves of Larchwood, you could legally buy fireworks at roadside stands.

Ted Fisch, Jim Ramsey, Wiener Winters, the Cook boys, Hermie Casjens, Jerry Prahl, Elmer Menage, and the rest of the neighborhood gang would race out of  their houses to catch the action. Some had cajoled firecrackers from their parents or bartered from the older boys in the neighborhood: some torpedoes (the kind you smashed against the sidewalk); lots of 2 and 3-inchers, occasionally the granddaddy of them all, the cherry bomb (the really explosive firecracker, stubby, cherry red, with a wick sticking up menacingly from its middle; the kind of firecracker you’d gladly trade away your best set of Submariner comics for.)

Ah, the cherry bomb. It was a microcosm of excitement and mischief and good fun. Bob Creglow, the most resourceful of the Creglow boys, would take a cherry bomb, set it beneath a tin can on a porch, light the fuse, then head for the lilac bushes behind the barn.

“The trick,” he would say, imparting wisdom of the highest order, “is to place the can on a wood porch with a wood roof. Then it will hit the top of the porch, bang, then the bottom of the porch, bang. That’s how you get the biggest clatter.”

So I trudged off to the Linkenheil house, the nearest front porch suitable for cherry bombing, to try my hand at small-town demolition. Bang went the firecracker. Bang went the can on the roof. Bang went the can on the floor. Bang went the screen door as Karl Linkenheil roared out in a sweat, and I lit out for the lilacs behind the barn with my dog, Oscar.

It was glorious stuff – not to be outdone for years, I found out later, until the Halloween eve in high school when Dave Dietz, Ted Fisch, Ken Roach, Bob Babl, and rest of the Hermie Casjens gang and I made the big time and twice pushed a boxcar loaded with lumber across Main Street and blocked it for hours. But that’s another story for my coming Halloween blog.

Shooting off fireworks was, of course, illegal in Rock Rapids, but Chief of Police Del Woodburn and later Elmer “Shene” Sheneberger used to lay low on the Fourth. I don’t recall ever seeing them about in our neighborhood and I don’t think they ever arrested anybody, although each year the Lyon County  Reporter would carry vague warnings about everybody cooperating to have “a safe and sane Fourth of July.”

Perhaps it was just too dangerous for them to start making firecracker arrests on the Fourth – on the same principle, I guess, that it was dangerous to do too much about the swashbuckling on Halloween or start running down dogs without leashes (Mayor Earl Fisher used to run on the platform that, as long as he was in office, no dog in town would have to be leashed. The neighborhood consensus was that Fisher’s dog, a big, boisterous boxer, was one of the few that ought to be leashed).

We handled the cherry bombs and other fireworks in our possession with extreme care and cultivation; I can’t remember a single mishap. Yet, even then, the handwriting was on the wall. There was talk of cutting off the fireworks supply in South Dakota because it was dangerous for young boys. Pretty soon, they did cut off the cherry bomb traffic and about all that was left, when I came back from college and the Roger boys had replaced the Creglow boys next door, was little stuff appropriately called ladyfingers.

Fireworks are dangerous, our parents would say, and each year they would dust off the old chestnut about the drugstore in Spencer that had a big stock of fireworks and they caught fire one night and much of the downtown went up in a spectacular shower of roman candles and sparkling fountains.

The story was hard to pin down, and seemed to get more gruesome every year – but, we were told, this was why Iowa banned fireworks years before, why they were so dangerous and why little boys shouldn’t be setting them off. The story, of course, never made quite the intended impression; we just wished we’d been on the scene.  My grandfather was the town druggist (Brugmann’s Drugstore, “Where drugs and gold are fairly sold, since 1902″) and he said he knew the Spencer druggist personally. Fireworks put him out of business and into the poorhouse, he’d say, and walk away shaking his head.

In any event, firecrackers weren’t much of an issue past noon – the Fourth celebration at the fairgrounds was getting underway and there was too much else to do. Appropriately, the celebration was sponsored by the Rex Strait post of the American Legion (Strait, so the story went, was the first boy from Rock Rapids to die on foreign soil during World War I); the legionnaires were a bunch of good guys from the cleaners and the feed store and the bank who sponsored the American Legion baseball team each summer.

There was always a big carnival, with a ferris wheel somewhere in the center for the kids, a bingo stand for the elders, a booth where the ladies from the Methodist Church sold homemade baked goods, sometimes a hootchy dancer or two, and a couple of dank watering holes beneath the grandstand where the VFW and the Legion sold Grainbelt and Hamms beer  at 30¢ a bottle to anybody who looked of age.

Later on, when the farmboys came in from George and Alvord, there was lots of pushing and shoving, and a fist fight or two.

In front of the grandstand, out in the dust and the sun, would come a succession of shows that made the summer rounds of the little towns. One year it would be Joey Chitwood and his daredevil drivers. (The announcer always fascinated me: “Here he comes, folks, rounding the far turn…he is doing a great job out there tonight…let’s give him a big, big hand as he pulls up in front on the grandstand…”)

Another year it would be harness racing and Mr. Hardy, our local trainer from Doon, would be in his moment of glory. Another year it was tag team wrestling and a couple of barrel-chested goons from Omaha, playing the mean heavies and rabbit-punching their opponents from the back, would provoke roars of disgust from the grandstand. ( The biggest barrel-chest would lean back on the ropes, looking menacingly at the crowd and yell, “ Aw, you dumb farmers. What the hell do you know anyway? I can beat the hell out of any of you.”   And the crowd  would roar back in glee.)

One year, Cedric Adams, the Herb Caen of Minneapolis Star-Tribune, would tour the provinces as the emcee of local  variety shows. “It’s great to be in Rock Rapids,” he would say expansively, “because it’s always been known as the ‘Gateway to Magnolia.” (Magnolia, he didn’t need to say, was a little town just over the state line in Minnesota which was known throughout the territory for its liquor-by-the-drink roadhouses. It was also Cedric Adams’ hometown: his “Sackamenna,” as Caen would say.  Adams kissed each girl (soundly) who came on the platform to perform and, at the end, hushed the crowd for his radio broadcast to the big city “direct from the stage of the Lyon County Fairgrounds in Rock Rapids, Iowa.”

For a couple of years, when Rock Rapids had a “town team,” and a couple of imported left-handed pitchers named Peewee Wenger and Karl Kletschke, we would have some rousing baseball games with the best semi-pro team around, Larchwood and its gang of Snyder brothers: Barney the eldest at shortstop, Jimmy the youngest at third base, John in center field, Paul in left field, another Snyder behind the plate and a couple on the bench. They were as tough as they came in Iowa baseball.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday at Candlestick, the 1948 game with the Snyders of Larchwood. Peewee Wenger, a gawky, 17-year-old kid right off a high school team, was pitching for Rock Rapids and holding down the Snyder artillery in splendid fashion. Inning after inning he went on, nursing a small lead, mastering one tough Larchwood batter after another, with a blistering fastball and a curve that sliced wickedly into the bat handles of the right-handed Larchwood line-up.

Then the cagey Barney Snyder laid a slow bunt down the third base line. Wenger stumbled, lurched, almost fell getting to the ball, then toppled off balance again, stood helplessly holding the ball. He couldn’t make the throw to first. Barney was safe, cocky and firing insults like machine gun bullets at Peewee from first base.

Peewee, visibly shaken, went back to the mound. He pitched, the next Larchwood batter bunted, this time down the first base line. Peewee lurched for the ball, but couldn’t come up with it. A couple more bunts, a shot through the pitcher’s mound, more bunts and Peewee was out. He could pitch, but, alas, he was too clumsy to field. In came Bill Jammer, now in his late 30’s, but in his day the man who beat the University of Iowa while pitching at a small college called Simpson.

Now he was pitching on guts and beer, a combination good enough for many teams and on good days even good enough  to take on the Snyders. Jammer did well for a couple of innings, then he let two men on base, then came a close call at the plate. Jammer got mad. Both teams were off the bench and onto the field and, as Fred Roach wrote in the Reporter, “fisticuffs erupted at home plate.” When the dust cleared, Jammer had a broken jaw, and for the next two weeks had to drink his soup through a straw at the Joy Lunch cafe, John Snyder, it was said later, came all the way in from center field to throw the punch, but nobody knew for sure and he stayed in the game. I can’t remember the score or who won the game, but I remember it as the best Fourth ever.

At dusk, the people moved out on their porches or put up folding chairs on their lawns. Those who didn’t have a good view drove out to the New Addition or parked out near Mark Curtis’ place or along the river roads that snaked out to the five-mile bridge and Virgil Hasche’s farm.

A hush came over the town. Fireflies started flickering in the river bottom and, along about 8:30, the first puff of smoke rose above the fairgrounds and an aerial bomb whistled into the heavens. BOOM! And the town shook as if hit by a clap of thunder.

Then the three-tiered sky bombs – pink, yellow, white, puff, puff, puff. The Niagara Falls and a gush of white sparks.

Then, in sudden fury, a dazzling display of sizzling comets and aerial bombs and star clusters that arched high, hung for a full breath and descended in a cascade of sparks that floated harmlessly over the meadows and cornfields. At the end, the flag – red, white and blue – would burst forth on the ground as the All-American finale in the darkest of the dark summer nights. On cue, the cheers rolled out from the grandstand and the cars honked from the high ground and the people trundled up their lawn chairs and everybody headed for home.

Well, I live in San Francisco now, and I drive to Daly City with my son, Danny, to buy some anemic stuff in gaudy yellow and blue wrapping and I try unsuccessfully each year to get through the fog or the traffic to see the fireworks at Candlestick. But I feel better knowing that, back where I come from, everybody in town will be on their porches and on the backroads on the evening of the Fourth to watch the fireworks and that, somewhere in town, a little boy will put a big firecracker under a tin can on a wood porch, then light out for the lilacs behind the barn.

P.S. Our family moved in l965 from Daly City to a house in the West Portal area of San Francisco. There are, I assure you, few visible fireworks in that neighborhood. However, down at the bottom of Potrero Hill, the professional and amateur action is spectacular on the evening of the Fourth of July.

From any Potrero Hill height, you can see the fireworks in several directions: the waterfront fireworks in the city, fireworks on the Marin side of the Golden Gate bridge, fireworks at several points in the East Bay, fireworks along the Peninsula coast line.

And for the amateur action, parents with kids, kids of all ages, spectators in cars and on foot, congregate after dusk along Terry Francois Boulevard in San Francisco along the shoreline between the Giants ballpark and the  Mission Rock restaurant.

The action is informal but fiery, fast, and furious: cherry bombs, clusters, spinning wheels, high flying arcs, whizzers of all shapes and sizes. The cops are quite civilized and gingerly patrol the perimeter but don’t bother anybody. I go every year. I think it’s the best show in town. B3.

Polo in the park

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le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

IN THE GAME The lights at Jose Coronado Playground stay on until 10 p.m. Like most playgrounds, it has a life of its own: a heart, a brain, a bloated liver, and a basketball hoop. In fact: two — but most nights the basketball court is cut in half by an extension of the tennis court to create a bike polo court. Which is cut in half by the slightly grassy crack between tennis-top acrylic and just plain asphalt.

So you don’t always get a clean roll, but that’s life.

Also life: the ragtag collection of drunks and disorderlies congregating on the sidewalk near the 21st St. entrance to the courts most evenings. They bring chairs, or huddle around the trash bin there.

One of their number, long gray hair scare-crowing out from under his hat, saunters onto the empty half-court with a worn black basketball and starts shooting free throws. He’s wearing a suit jacket. After missing four straight from the line, he backs up to almost half court, heaves awkwardly from his rib cage, and finally sinks one.

Nobody cheers.

On the unbicycled part of the next-door tennis court, a couple of much younger folks, a pink-haired woman and a regular ol’ facial-haired man, are riding around in electric-wheelchair-based cardboard robots. They look like something from a sixth-grade science fair, modified boxes with marker-drawn robot features. One has corrugated heating ducts for arms, dangling down to the pavement.

“You go on ahead without me,” I say to Hedgehog.

Jose Coronado is smack between our favorite restaurant (Limon Rotisserie) and our favorite ice cream (Humphry Slocombe).

“Do you want me to bring you something?” she says.

“Your call,” says I. I eat ice cream, but it’s not my thing.

Nor are homemade robots. But I have to ask, so while Hedgehog is walking on to 24th and picking out our flavors, I manage to make my way into the driver’s seat for a test drive. There is a camera mounted high on the chain-link fence surrounding the playground, and you have to drive by video, which is transmitted to a pair of goggles.

It’s like playing a video game from inside the screen. You are the little thing that you’re looking at.

I don’t like video games.

Zipping around pretty much blindly, I get almost immediately dizzy and lost, and almost crash into some bikes.

They’re going to race these funny wheelchair robots next day at SubZERO, San Jose’s annual subcultural festival, and I wish them luck.

While I’m waiting for Hedgehog to get back with our ice cream, I watch a little bike polo on the other side of the tennis net. It’s a pretty intense pick-up scene. Three-on-three, with a basketball hoop and a light pole in the field of play.

Most of them wear helmets. Some, knee pads and elbow pads. They drink beer, they smoke. One girl is playing with a cigarette in her mouth.

Plastic mallets awhirl, they circle and sprint, skid, bounce, and sometimes fall. If your foot touches the ground, you have to touch one of the mid-court posts with your mallet before returning to play.

It looks goddamn fun.

Another woman scores her second goal of the game and a dude against the fence, waiting his team’s turn, hollers, “My nipples are hard!”

“I didn’t know he had nipples,” quips a guy on a bike, racing back to defend his goal.

On the hard-top soccer pitch other side of the fence from all this, a couple of moms are kicking around with their kids. I fantasize about joining them, but here comes Hedgehog with our ice cream: mango and carrot, and basil lime.

The basketball scarecrow has moved on, and now two short guys are playing one-on-one. Someone else is practicing his fancy dribbling in the shadows, and occasionally pulls up and bounces a shot off of a light pole.

Twenty Major League Baseball players face possible suspension for alleged use of performance enhancing drugs, and these moms, kids, kooks, and badasses are out here every time I walk by, which is often.

Between Shotwell and Harrison on 21st Street in the Mission. Jose Coronado Playground. This has been a night in the life. Of it.

Newcomer Nights are on Wednesdays, in case you’re interested in getting in the game, bike polowise.

Otherwise, it’s not a bad spectator sport. Mondays, Thursdays, and Saturdays they play, from seven to ten. Check it out.

www.sfbikepolo.com

 

Three! Out!

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IN THE GAME Home runs are called fuoricampi, which translates literally to outfields, in the sense of “out of the park.” Hits are valide, or “valids.” And a strike out is a strike out. It’s pretty adorable, when the field announcer at Stadio Nuevo Europeo in Parma exclaims, “Strike! Three! Out!”

At one point last Saturday, Parma’s starter Jose Sanchez struck out seven in a row. Over six shutout innings, he struck out 12, so we got to hear it a lot:

“Strike! Three! Out!”

I’m 50.

How it happened was like this: I was born, and it was 50 years ago. And now it’s now. So: yeah . . . fuckin’ 50.

Many years ago I had a sweatshirt with Chief Wahoo (the Cleveland Indians’ politically insensitive logo) on it, only instead of saying Cleveland it said Nettuno. The Nettuno Indians.

Then, when anyone said they were offended by my shirt I would say, but it’s not Cleveland; it’s Nettuno. Which admittedly didn’t solve the problem. At best it diverted attention away from it long enough for me to sneak out a side door — you know, while my assailant’s pot-addled brain was flipping through his rolodex of planets, from the sun outward, looking for Nettuno.

Is “rolodex” still a word?

In either case, we couldn’t believe we missed the World Baseball Classic at AT&T Park earlier this spring, so, so long as we were in Europe for my birthday we thought we’d go see us some world baseball. Which is to say, Italian baseball. Which is to say, Parma vs. Grosseto. Which is to say, Enegan Toshiba Grosseto. Which is also to say, the Grosetto Mastiffs.

The names of the teams are very confusing over there. And they tend to change a lot, sometimes even between innings. In fact, sadly, I don’t think the Nettuno Indians are the Nettuno Indians anymore. Probably Cleveland sued them. Or someone pointed out that Native Americans were inherently American and, by extension, from Earth.

Anyway, we had hoped to make it to Nettuno, to find out, but they were away that Saturday, playing a doubleheader against Saturno. Italian baseball only happens on weekends, see. There just isn’t enough interest in it, when Hedgehog and I aren’t around, to support more games than that. Even with us, attendance for the game in Parma was 139. I know because I counted.

I also used my passport as a straight-edge to line some squares into a piece of paper and I kept score. All so I could tell my loyal and baffled readership back here at home in San Francisco that Parma beat Grosseto on Saturday 9-3.

Leftfielder Massimo Pesci, hitting in the nine hole, crushed a two-run homer off Grosseto starter Rafael Garcia in the second. Parma added two in the fifth, chasing Garcia, then blasted Coronado Angel Marquez in the sixth with five straight hits, capped by a Luca Scalera two-run shot.

With the game securely out of reach, Parma reliever Alexander Tabata Velasquez came on in the 7th and earned a three-inning save.

Grosseto got all three of their runs in the eighth. Francesco Di Mattia led off with a pinch single, Rafael Lora walked, and Bernardo Encarnacion singled to load the bases. Cleanup hitter Nelwin Sforza came through with a sharp single to center, scoring two, and Vincenzo D’Addio followed with a sac fly to right, plating Encarnacion.

There. I just wanted to say all that. Because I’m 50, so I can.

Winning pitcher: Jose Sanchez. Losing pitcher: Rafael Garcia. And if you’re wondering why all the Italian league pitchers have Spanish sounding names, it’s because they import them from Latin America. I think because Italians in Italy don’t play enough baseball, growing up, to develop into pitchers. This is just a guess.

But it could explain why Italy tends to surprise then fizzle in international competitions like the World Baseball Classic. This year, for example, they upset Mexico and Canada in the first round, then lost out in the second. Their starting pitching holds, and then all hell breaks loose when you get into their bullpen.

Such is the state of soccer-dominant Europe, when it comes to trying to use their hands and arms at something. There’s a promising Italian national in the Seattle farm system (Alex Liddi), and one of my favorite current major leaguers is Netherlands-born shortstop Didi Gregorious, of the Arizona Diamondbacks.

Oh, and the Bundesliga in Germany has a team called the Dohren Wild Farmers. That’s who I want to play for.

When I grow up.

Fire fight

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le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

IN THE GAME In a pink dress, with a pink hair tie and those little pink sneakers that light up every time you take a step, she dominated the Alameda High School hardwood. I’m going to guess she was three. How else to explain the dogged determination with which, time after time after time, she took aim at the far-away hoop, and with all her cute-little-cutey-pie might heaved the basketball to a point about a foot-and-a-half in front of her feet. Bounce, plop, and roll …

All around her, Alameda police and fire fighters were shooting jumpers, warming up for the second half of their game, entirely unfazed by li’l Pinkie, or any of the other children who had swarmed the court during the halftime raffle — and weren’t in any hurry to give it back to the grownups.

Pinkie took her shots from the top of the key. From the lane. From the foul line. She shot for two, and she shot for three, and though she never really managed to propel the ball more than a couple feet away from her self, she was on fire.

One jumper went about six inches in the air before coming back down and landing on her nose. But not even this could dampen her spirits. With a huge smile, and the forever blinking shoes, she went right back to work.

I want this! Not the child — although I’d take one — but the attitude. Yeah: there’s a thing I can’t possibly do but it sure is fun to try! . . . Maybe I’ll start a novel. Learn a new instrument, or language. Or, for that matter, basketball! A sport which has always eluded me. Because I am small, I have always said. But Pinkie changes everything.

I wonder if she’s had ACL surgery. Probably not. She’s three. But I’ll bet she would . . .

In one week I’ll be 50. My second-half goal is to do like her.

It took more than the ref’s whistle to clear the floor for the second half. Moms and dads had to come scoop up their kids. And I missed them, because the third quarter was sluggish.

Carl Rolleri, police officer, who had hit five of five three-pointers in the first half, came down to Earth and missed a shot. Jill Ottaviano, the game’s only female player, who had scored the first two points for the police, was on the bench. The fire department seemed a little burnt out. I speak from experience: half time will do that to you.

The score, 31-20 after two quarters, was only 37-26 at the end of the third. Not that it mattered who was winning — this was Alameda’s police and fire departments raising money for a whole slew of children’s programs — but the police were winning. Soundly, and from the get-go.

They had a mascot, an adorable pet pig named Charlie in a police hat and a fake mustache, who had been walked out onto the court before tip-off, and spent the rest of the game in a baby stroller, tormented by children.

They had a chant: “Let’s go pigs! Let’s go pigs!” . . .

They had a guy in a wig and one with hearts on his socks, and they had the game’s only woman.

But I was rooting for the fire fighters, because they had a boy cheerleader. And, for my money, that’s even braver than the many awesome picks I saw Ottaviano set against guys twice her weight.

The Alameda High Hornets cheerleaders cheered on the fire department, and the Jets from Encinal High cheered on the police. The Encinal squad had a couple of acrobats who went flipping across the court once or twice during breaks. Which seemed even more impressive later, when I overheard one of them tell the woman sitting next to me, “We have bad stomachaches from the sushi.”

Anyway, the game got interesting again in the fourth quarter. The fire department pulled to within two. (They might have tied it, but I think the scoreboard operator was just confused.)

It was 42-39, police, with two minutes left. What a comeback!

But, like the Celtics facing elimination against the Knicks earlier that Saturday afternoon, the Alameda Fire Department came on strong and came up short: 44-40 was the final.

We went and talked to Charlie the pig a little bit, but it wasn’t a post-game interview per se. Her owner, a friend of a police, was trying to redirect would-be petters away from the poor pig’s face.

“Pet him back here, sweetie,” she said to one of these children, explaining to me that the smell of cotton candy and such all over all the kids’ hands was “starting to confuse him.”

Who I really wanted to talk to was the little girl, Pinkie — but it was way past her bed time.

 

Just for kicks

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IN THE GAME It’s not kickball; it’s matball. Which looks a lot like kickball, with one big difference: You can have more than one runner at a time on any given base. You can have up to three, but if a fourth is incoming, someone’s got to go.

You don’t have to stop running, either, when you reach home, in some versions of the game. You can keep going — back to first, and around the bases again. In gym class, this was a way to make kids run laps without quite exactly knowing it.

Here in the adult world it’s just good, clean chaos. Jay Li uses that word a lot — chaos — talking about his co-ed pickup kickball scene.

“That’s the reason we’re playing at Dolores Park,” he said. “You have people, and other variables, that you can’t predict.”

“Like the volleyball net in left field?” I asked.

“That’s one of the variables,” he said.

The volleyball net went up in the fourth inning. Someone came, set it up, and then didn’t play. After grumbling a bit, the matballers turned it into a home run fence. A very shallow one. A “mesh monster” of sorts.

Other variables are self-imposed. There are no force-outs, for example. You have to either hit or touch the runner with the ball, between bases. Or, of course, catch it.

The kicking team supplies its own pitcher. And the kicker gets to choose from a whole menu of balls that lie scattered about the pitcher’s feet. There was a giant one, a tiny one, and a couple of different midrange sizes.

My favorite of Li’s innovations, though, is his loose interpretation of the basepath. Twice during the game runners, thinking they were out, left the field of play . . . only to find they had in fact not been called out; nor were they out for leaving the basepath. And, thanks to Li’s leniency, they had every right in the world to try and get back safely. Neverminding that the base, by that time, was being guarded by a defender with a ball.

Hilarity ensued. In one instance, a couple offensive teammates came charging from the sidelines toward the base, like pulling guards and tackles, to block for the poor, displaced baserunner.

Watching from the hill, with a picnic, I almost choked on my chicken I was laughing so hard.

“That’s the whole idea,” Li said later, when I asked about this particular play. “It hasn’t happened that much, but when it does, I let it happen. It’s entertaining. People get creative.”

Matball is not a low-scoring game. The score was 14-0 before the first out was recorded. It was 15-14 at the end of the first inning — at which point they decided to move the bases back a little.

Li, an energetic, easy-going, backwards-hatted commissioner, moderates the game, photographs the bejesus out of it, and fills in for anyone who has to leave early or turns their ankle. He also buys drinks — alcoholic or not — for the winning team after.

Before Li’s Meetup group, Bay Area Kickball, formed a couple years ago, he played on a team in a league. “I found the game a little too serious. A little too much alcohol,” he said. “It wasn’t that much fun for me.”

Now, once or twice a month, he sets up these more casual (and more sober) coed games through Meetup. If under 25 people show, they play kickball. If more than 25, matball.

The one I saw . . . there was a good mix of men and women, serious athletes and beginners. One with keys jangling from his belt loop, others in cleats. In truth, the athleticism surprised me. I saw one guy run with the ball from centerfield all the way to home plate to bean someone just as they were about to score.

“As long as there are people who can play very well, it kind of keeps the game going, and keeps it interesting,” Li said. “I’m trying to balance all these things.”

He’s doing a good job. Impressively, with all that scoring, and all the chaos, plus the almost-arbitrary divide of serious athletes and just-for-funners, it was, in the end, a one-run game.

The team called Cannibal Sheep won, 36-35. But the losers, the Winners, had the tying run on 2nd base when the final out was recorded.

Oh, and by the way, that “final out” was the fifth, not the third. You get five outs in the ninth inning, so long as both teams agree to it.

Then, before the bar, both teams pile up together for a group photo for the Web page. Which, in this case — as the only member of the press present — I had the honor to snap. Check it out.

http://www.meetup.com/BayAreaKickball

 

Rough, rough

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Le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

They have cheerleaders at semi-pro football games. They have semi-pro cheerleaders. At halftime the five of them went out to the 50-yard line of the Rancho Cotate High School football field in Rohnert Park and put on a li’l halftime show.

I’m not a dog. Nevertheless, I really really felt like chasing Frisbees. The girls were good, but the halftime show could have used . . . something. Maybe a semi-pro Frisbee dog.

There was a semi-pro field announcer. Semi-pro concession stand. Semi-pro refs — one with a microphone, so the semi-pro spectators had a clue. There must have been about a hundred of us, maybe two, counting players’ wives and such, and their kids, who were running around on the sidelines, playing catch.

Girls from Hooters were trolling the stands, handing out coupons for a chicken wing special. And members of the North Bay Bruisers, Sonoma County’s roller derby team, were rumbling back and forth across the aluminum bleachers, in their skates, trying to sell raffle tickets.

Hedgehog, semi-pro photographer, was down on the field taking some pretty decent pictures of things. Including: a nice sideline catch, a runner crossing the plane of the end zone, and — late in the second quarter — a punter about to get creamed.

He was Angelo Jeffereys of the Nor Cal Knights, who double-dutied as a running back. And probably the play would have drawn a roughing-the-punter call in the NFL, because the punt blocker got more leg than pigskin.

Semi-pro refs are not flag shy, either, far as I can tell. I think there were two or three penalties on that play alone, and at least one of them was a personal foul. Oddly, though, none were for roughing the punter. Who wasn’t getting up.

One of the North Bay Rattlers tended to him — the same guy who I’d seen seeing to the injured Knight’s quarterback earlier in the half, on the Rattlers’ sideline.

Semi-pro football is rough. Not semi-rough. Rough rough.

But (as I might have mentioned) I’m not a dog. I’m a semi-pro sports writer. I was sitting just under the field announcer’s booth, in the sun, scribbling semi-legible notes on the back of a grocery receipt and just generally enjoying my Saturday.

I love Sonoma County. The air up there, the pace, the ten degrees it has on the city this time of year . . . There are many reasons why the North Bay is one of my favorite bays, but the Rattlers, their semi-pro football team, isn’t one of them.

Not that they’re not good. Oh, they’re that — a little overly so, is the problem. They win by scores like 85-0, 60-0, and, last Saturday against the Knights, 56-6.

The Knights had their moments: Two or three quarterback sacks, an interception . . . Early in the first quarter, trailing only 7-0, Jeffereys boomed a professional-quality punt which briefly changed the complexion of the game, field-positionwise …

After that, and a 15-yard facemask penalty against the Rattlers, the Knights had almost even seemed to be “in it.”

But they couldn’t capitalize, and fifteen game-clock minutes later when Jeffereys finally hobbled off the field after the roughing-the-punter non-call, the sense of in-it-ness was long gone. It was 28-0.

It was 35-0 at the half.

But here’s the thing: There are twelve teams in the West Coast Football Association. At least one of them is capable of beating the Rattlers: The Pacifica Islanders. They already met in the regular season (Rattlers 25, Islanders 17), and will likely face off again for the league championship in June.

If you’re a football fan, like me, you’re going to want to see that rematch.

Meanwhile, the Nor Cal Knights, even with last weekend’s lopsided loss, are 3-2 on the season, which puts them in the middle of the pack. They need a quarterback. (They went through three of them, each as ineffective as the last, against the Rattlers.) But against most WCFA teams, on any given Saturday, they are liable to give you a good ‘un.

These guys are big. Fast. Talented. Brave-bordering-on-maybe-crazy. I mean, it’s not the S.F. Women’s Flag Football League, but it’s fun.

And cheap.

There are teams in Modesto, San Jose, Santa Cruz, Reno . . . And the Knights play their home games at Castlemont High School, in Oakland. Check it out.

West Coast Football Association

www.wcfanetwork.com. Click on “application” for info about joining the league.

 

Ringside

2

By L.E. Leone

IN THE GAME Gio Camacho, captain of the West Point women’s boxing team, sang the national anthem into the ring announcer’s microphone, wearing boxing gloves. Then she climbed into the ring and beat the beans out of University of Maryland’s Catherine Breslin, who looked a little bewildered.

This was the first fight on a 21-bout card the second night of the inaugural United States Intercollegiate Boxing Association tournament held at USF last weekend. Incredibly, it was the first collegiate tournament to crown women champions, as well as men.

West Point seemed especially excited about this. The academy sent twelve female boxers to San Francisco for the event (and no male ones). Eight out of nine of the women’s bouts featured at least one West Pointer. A couple were West Point vs. West Point.

West Point had coaches. West Point had uniforms. West Point had chants. West Point had Gio Camacho. After a while, it became pretty easy to root against West Point. Everyone from any other college who stepped into the ring with them seemed lonely and intimidated.

It’s reassuring, I suppose, from a national security standpoint, that our country’s future military officers fought with more discipline, confidence, and swagger than (for example) Pat Cannaday of UNC — who I fell in love with when I saw her laughing in her corner between rounds. Something her coach had said to her.

She was clearly being beaten. But didn’t seem fazed by it. At all. The ref interrupted the fight in the middle of the third because her ponytail had come undone. She had to go to her corner and have it taped.

Cannaday lost. Rachel Luba of UCLA lost. Jules Squire, a jangly and wildly strong, free-swinging slugger from UMD, lost, goddamn it. Mei-Le Keck of UCLA lost.

West Point took every weight class from 112 to 152. I started to lose interest. Then I saw three people sitting in another section of bleachers off to the side at the Koret Center gymnasium. They didn’t look “above it all” so much as, yeah, “off to the side” of it.

The woman was wearing a WVU hoody, her hands in the pockets. She wasn’t shadow boxing, chattering nervously, or eating power bars. In fact, it was hard to tell she was a boxer.

Her coach didn’t look like the other coaches, and her boyfriend didn’t look like anyone else in the place: beard, bandanna, shorts and flip-flops . . .

My people! I thought.

When I saw her legs, I knew who was going to take West Point down.

Sadly, though, Jennifer Moreale of WVU never had the chance. She fought Eileen Macias-Mendoza, USF. She fought the home team! And she won, by TKO. First round. Probably the USF boxing coach saw what I’d seen. In fact, he had the best view in the house of where Moreale’s power was coming from, and he threw in the towel. I saw this. It was literal. Towel. Over. First knockout of the night.

The second came in the other 165-pound fight, in which West Point was taken down, finally, by Elizabeth Brunton of Georgetown. Brunton, another likeable fighter, had a strong upper body and an old-fashioned brawler’s demeanor, but bird legs compared to Moreale’s.

Now, the next night, they were going to square off for the 165-pound collegiate title. That’s the heavyweights, for women. Brunton vs. Moreale. It had a ring, for me — like Ali-Frazier or Foreman Grill. I was hooked. Brunton-Moreale. The rest of that evening, and all the next day, it was the only thing I could talk about. West Virginia vs. Georgetown.

In collegiate boxing, they count the punches landed, that’s all, and — barring a knockout — it is how you win or lose. Three rounds. Two minutes apiece. It goes fast, from the outside.

“When you’re the person in the ring, you’re in it alone,” Moreale told me after. “The only voice I hear is the corner. And I feel the punches. And I feel what I am going to do next. But that’s it.”

Brunton went the distance with her, and fought well, but Moreale won. She looked like a different fighter the second night: more bob and weave. “I discovered some things that I always thought I could do,” she said. “I surprised myself, too.”

Counting her half-round TKO the night before, this was her fourth fight ever.

An Italian native, Moreale is two years into her PhD studies. Economics. But she has wanted to box since she was little, when she would practice on a stuffed duffel bag, wearing ski gloves.

“When you believe in something,” she said, two hands on her giant, gaudy, championship belt, “it’s possible.”

I said that I agreed.

 

Psychic Dream Astrology: April 17-23

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ARIES

March 21-April 19

Creating a narrative that helps you to make sense of your emotions does not help you to be true to them, Aries. Too much story telling can lead to distancing yourself from what you’re actually experiencing. Be brave enough to drop into your feelings and to deal with whatever your find this week.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Instead of figuring out the "right" thing to say concentrate on how to speak in a direct and honest way. Don’t get your point across, Taurus, communicate the things that you need the other person to hear. Express yourself in ways that allow for your true meaning to get heard this week.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

This is an excellent week for beginnings, Gemini. Whether you focus your energies on cultivating new attitudes, learning a new skill or concept or opening the door to a new person or thing entering your life, you are likely to grow from it. Take responsibility for what you start and enjoy the ride.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Sometimes the path to becoming free is through the very brambles that bind you. You may be feeling sad and stuck, but evading those feelings will only make them worse. You are going through a loss or a major fear of impending loss this week, but don’t let those feelings define you. Find and release what you need to let go of, Cancer.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Being a boss and taking accountability for the direction and content of your life is awesome. You are capable and driven. The only danger is that you heap things on top of each other and end up overwhelmed and unable to come through on all of your commitments. Pace yourself, no matter how confident you’re feeling this week, Leo.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

You can be in the greatest relationships with the all-time best people and still have problems. It’s important to be honest with yourself about how you’re participating with others this week. Do they know what’s going on with you or are you expecting them to guess? Are you over-talking things and obscuring the point? Pursue clarity, Virgo.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Follow through on your plans and trust your instincts, Libra. This is not the time to kick back and navel gaze. You are running high energy that will help you get things done this week, and get ’em done successfully. Don’t be scared that action will disrupt the peace you have in your life. This week it’s nothing ventured, nothing gained.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

You have responsibility to yourself, Scorpio. This week you must have enough vision and self-love to be willing to delay gratification. Your goals need to be executed over the long haul, but don’t loose faith! With patience and perseverance you can get exactly where you need to go. Invest in your future.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Don’t give up, Sagittarius. Even if things aren’t going as you want them to and obstacles seem insurmountable, you need to stay in the game. Learn from your mistakes and pay attention to the evidence that is being presented to you about the people and situations around you. Accept where you’re at; it’s the first step towards change.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You’ve got all these ideas about the right way to do things that are outdated if they ever worked at all. Strive to create more flexibility and fluidity in your thinking as you come up with new ideas and revamp others. Reject your old, rigid attitudes in favor of a kindler, gentler, and more compassionate way of living.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Center your life on the things that make you thrive, Water Bearer. You’ve been around the block before and you know that you’re not very good at compromising your happiness for long. You need to make some choices this week and the best way to do it is by prioritizing things that you can sustain with a whole heart.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Putting a good face on things is nice but it won’t get the job done, Pisces. This week you must cope with stressful situations even if they bring up alarmist reactions in you. If you’re willing to let go of your old worn out ways all will be for the best.


Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Food fight

3

le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

IN THE GAME Did you see what Jed Lowrie (swoon) did last Wednesday, on the very day my column about him hit the streets? He propelled the A’s to their first win of the regular season, going 3-3 with a walk, the game-winning 2-run double, and a home run. In fact he hit two doubles that game, then two more the next — also a win.

This means he loves me too. Although . . . it’s hard to imagine he got a very good look from way down there on the field.

Well, I stand by everything I said about the new A’s shortstop. In fact, taking his lead, I double it.

Almost everything else about last week’s column, however, I have to retract.

Or correct. As in: of course the A’s record-breaking 20-game win streak was in 2002, not 2001. Last year was the ten-year anniversary, and last year was 2012. And math is math.

More importantly, and even more wrongly, I said that AT&T has better concessions than O.co.

What I meant by that careless assertion was that AT&T has a greater variety of fancier (and generally bad) things to eat for even more money than O.co. I know because Hedgehog and I got ourselves to two of those Bay Bridge Series warm-up games, one on each side of the bay, by way of our own li’l Spring Training.

Surprise surprise. I can’t believe a) how many people go to those games, b) how many innings they are willing to miss while standing in line for garlic fries, and c) that Oakland’s garlic fries are better than San Francisco’s.

What the-?

I thought I remembered AT&T’s garlic fries being awesome, not to mention edible. True, their fryers, like Marco Scutaro, might not be in mid-season form, but you would think at least some of the fries would have at least some amount of crunch to them.

Nope. Greasy soggy seagull food, every single one.

O.co’s garlic fries had a little more crunch to them for a couple dollars less, but then they don’t have the gluten-free hot dog option over there, or gluten-free beer. I asked around, for my boo, who — believe it or not — is more into the game of the game than I am. Plus she was test-running a new score-keeping app she’d paid $10 for and couldn’t leave her seat.

At AT&T, I’ll tell you: the gluten-free stuff is at section 112 in the Promenade Level. Otherwise, you don’t have to walk far in any direction to find all kinds of tempting yummies. To name a few: carving board sandwiches, bacon-wrapped hot dogs, Chicago dogs, and, for the tourists, clam chowder bread bowls and Dungeness crab on sourdough.

After about four-and-a-half innings of prowling, I pulled the trigger on a Cha Cha Bowl from Orlando’s Caribbean Barbecue in the center field food court, and I paraded it back to our seats like a hunter bringing home her kill: Look, Boo! It’s gluten free too!

Yeah, but not very good. Dry jerk chicken, white rice and black beans, with shredded carrots and zucchini. Best thing about it was the pineapple salsa on top.

Whereas . . . and this is a big whereas: O.co’s gluten-free kill turned out to be barbecue barbecue. As in sloppy, sopping spareribs and sliced pork, or Ameri-cue. And it also turned out to be awesome. Not just for stadium food, either. It was legitimately good ‘cue. And to think, last season I couldn’t even find barbecue at Oakland games. Now this: Ribs n’ Things.

Ribs n’ Things, it turns out, is an actual restaurant in Hayward, and — at the risk of reviewing a restaurant in my sports column — let me tell you that I would go there, if I ever went to Hayward. That’s how good it was. The best of both stadiums.

Okay. I conclude my two-part baseball season preview with sauce on my pants, yes, and the smell of barbecue under my fingernails. But as much as I love these things, and Jed Lowrie, the closing shot comes from the first night of the Bay Bridge Series, in San Francisco.

Not too cold, but not exactly warm either. It’s been a beautiful Spring, rain and all. Hedgehog and I are huddled together in the upper deck, facing the bay, and there is that classic late-inning blizzard of seagulls going on around us. Really, it looks like it’s snowing big white bird-shaped flakes, aglow in the stadium lights. The game and the greasy garlic fries have long since lost our interest, but this is something. It feels like we are on a first date. There’s a big orange moon rising up over the water, attended by wisps of clouds. A plane flies in front of it. Its lights go: blink.

 

The other home team

1

le.chicken.farmer@gmail.com

IN THE GAME I still think it’s easier to get to A’s games than Giants ones. You get on BART, you get off BART. Tickets are relatively cheap, and really very all-around available.

What the Giants have on the A’s is a prettier stadium with better concessions, including gluten-free hot dogs and gluten-free beer.

What the A’s have on the Giants, besides tickets, is Jed Lowrie.

Not since my Favorite Player Ever, Omar Vizquel, came to San Francisco from Cleveland in 2004 have Bay Area baseball fans been in for such a pleasant surprise.

Mind, Lowrie is not a flashy defensive shortstop with exciting speed, the world’s sweetest smile, and a sexy Venezuelan accent. He’s just an adorable white guy. From Oregon. Like Omar, he’s also an artist. A photographer. Who plays shortstop very well, and — without drawing too much attention — hits a ton. Well . . . 1,998 pounds, let’s say.

Last Opening Day Hedgehog and I were living in New Orleans, where the only baseball we could get on TV was the Houston Astros. The lowly Houston Astros. The 55-107 Houston Astros.

For once in our life we had a television, a 50-inch one, and a giant leather couch, and what was on was the worst team in baseball.

Bu we watched a lot of Houston Astros games. That’s how we happened to see Matt Cain’s perfect game. And that’s how we happened to fall in love — both of us — with Jed Lowrie.

Who was traded by Houston to Oakland in the off-season.

Lucky us. Lucky him, too. From worst team in baseball to playoff contention is not bad.

In a way, interestingly, Lowrie kind of brought the Astros with him. Like a bad smell, Houston drifts this year from the overcrowded NL Central to the A’s division, the AL West. That means the A’s will see a lot of Lowrie’s old team.

I like the matchup. Combined, the A’s and Astros enter the season with a payroll about two-thirds that of the Giants. Combined.

I know what you’re thinking: what does this have to do with me?

Depends . . .

Who are you? Are you Matt Cain? If so, you won’t be pitching any perfect games this year. Are you Brett Anderson? You might be. Are you neither? Just an average every day cash-strapped alternative weekly sports fan? Well, root root root for the other home team this season, I’m saying. They’ll give you more bang for your buck; it’s kind of a specialty of theirs. Remember? There was a whole movie about this.

Good as we’ve got it on this side of the pond, they have Jed Lowrie and Brad Pitt.

Yeah, but we have World Seriousness, you say.

I say . . . yeah, you’re right. There’s that, but I watched that World Serious, and it was boring. Fun, but boring. The good guys won; but kind of boringly, didn’t you think?

League Championship Series, maybe, but I don’t remember much about the Fall Classic. It went quickly. At the Mission and 22nd Street bonfire, I got spray paint on my favorite coat. Um . . . something about a bus.

Ask me about the Oakland-Texas series, though, and it’s synapse city inside my little head. Ask any A’s fan lucky enough to be there the last day of the regular season, the day the A’s came back from four runs down to sweep the defending (x2) American League champion Rangers and win the division; it is etched in their memory like the 20-game win streak of 2001, or the taste of carnitas in mine.

Texas was in first place all season. They came to Oakland Oct. 1 with three games left and a two-game lead over the surging A’s. On a whim, back in June, when the A’s were at least 10 games back, I had bought $2 tickets for the last game of the season, Oct. 3.

And that’s the other thing: BART $2 Wednesdays. This year there are ten of them, starting April 3. Hey — what are you doing after work?

Oct. 3, 2012, was sold out, the only regular season sellout at the O.co Coliseum except Opening Day. I have never witnessed anything like it in my baseball-game-going-to life. It felt like football in there, that’s how raucous it was. It felt like the fans had a say, like in football. And maybe we did.

And maybe we do.

Wednesday, April 3 vs. the Seattle Mariners. My guy Jed will be playing shortstop, batting probably second.

Oakland A’s

O.co Coliseum

http://oakland.athletics.mlb.com/oak/ticketing/bart_2_wed.jsp

 

The fist style

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le.chicken.farmer@yahoo.com

At the beginning of class, the children of the Oakland Kajukenbo Kwoon circle up and take a knee, with their heads bowed and their little fists pressed into the hardwood.

“I am powerful!” one little voice squeaks.

“I am fierce!” shouts the next.

“I am speedy!”

“I am unstoppable!”

It’s so freakin’ cool I don’t know what to do with myself and have to play with my phone just to keep from crying. They are learning something I wish I’d learned at five: how to have a say in things.

“I am somebody!” . . . is my personal favorite.

According to Sifu Kate Hobbs, a fifth-degree black belt and chief instructor of the school, vocalization is an integral part of self-defense. She lists “a voice that comes from deep in the guts” right alongside physical skills, agility, and timing, as factors she hopes will give her students a valuable edge if they are ever attacked.

For her, it’s all about the repetition of techniques and drills.

“I don’t spend any class time talking about what students might do if this or that happens,” she said. “Students are expected to attend regularly, engage fully, practice on their own, and stay for their whole lives.”

Kajukenbo, an American-made martial art, was established in the late 1940s in a violent Honolulu neighborhood by five black belts in five different Eastern disciplines — one of whom also happened to be Hawaii’s welterweight champion. So add a little Western pugilism to the mix.

Through this fist style, stilts the official Kajukenbo motto, one gains long life and happiness. The focus from the start — and Hobbs most definitely carries this torch — was on realism. Street smarts.

“Kajukenbo is beautiful and tough,” Hobbs told me. “It was created so men could kick other men’s asses if they got fronted on.” She described her own two Kajukenbo teachers as tough Irish-American women, and said she has tended — being herself of Irish descent — toward their “practicality and gritty-but-humorous self expression.”

Hobbs, who teaches a “Little Tigers” class for 3-5-year-olds, as well as older kids and adults, quoted Sijo Adriano Emperado, one of the five founders of Kajukenbo, as saying that “a great class was one where blood was shed.”

OK. But also, it’s cute. At least watching kindergartners practice “this fist style” is.

The parents who line the sidelines with me at the St. Columba Church in North Oakland seem sometimes mesmerized, sometimes traumatized, and sometimes proud as punch(es), watching their li’l beloveds stumble and soar through a variety of agility drills, jabs, and kicks.

I can speak for myself. Underlying everything, there is a sense of incredible gratitude, watching the kids I love (and worry about), as if they were my own, learn and practice something fundamentally important: using their five senses, their voice, and their bodies to not only defend themselves, but express what happened afterwards.

Sifu Kate, as they all call Hobbs, has a way with kids, and I feel like I could learn a little Nanny Fu from her, too. Without any perceivable effort, she has their respect and, generally speaking, their attention.

“I think I have a great combination of patience with the wild and unfettered nature of humans, and the timing of the drills and lessons,” she told me.

Watching my charge, Chunk de la Cooter, going through the running drills, forwards, backwards, skipping, grapevining, leaping, twirling — with an athletic grace I hadn’t yet seen in her — of course I couldn’t help imagining her with a soccer ball. And vowed to stay healthy enough to play on her rec league team one day.

When she’s 21, I’ll be 65. But that’s OK. I’m inspired, and she’s in excellent hands.

“Is Kung Fu sports?” I asked her in the car, driving home.

“No,” she said.

Then, after a brief period of reflection, she said: “Yes.”

Then: “We’ll ask Daddy.”

Hobbs, who I also asked, said, “I don’t think martial arts practice is anything like team sports. It is very individual and the competition is personal.

“We partner and we need each other to learn, and we bond,” she said, “but it has a totally different tenor.”

Among the lessons she feels are most important: Commitment, focus, love, self-respect . . . “Connect with the world,” she said. “Be open and curious, not afraid and careful, but large and messy and ugly.”

Oakland Kajukenbo Kwoon

www.oaklandkajukenbokwoon.com

sifukate.hobbs@gmail.com

 

Reality rap: Q&A with Saafir, the Saucee Nomad

6

Ed. note – this week’s music feature is all about emcee-producer Saafir, the Saucee Nomad. The wheelchair-bound associate of Hobo Junction and Digital Underground (and actor in ‘Menace II Society’) opened up to Guardian music writer Garrett Caples about his recent health struggles, making music, and what’s keeping him in check. Here’s the extended interview we couldn’t fit in the print edition:

San Francisco Bay Guardian Did you have any idea [Digital Underground leader] Shock-G was going to post about you on Davey-D’s blog?

Saafir Actually I had no idea that he was going to put that out. Shock had came and saw me one time and I didn’t really tell nobody that I was in a wheelchair as far as the DU crew. I wasn’t really in contact with anybody. Nobody really stayed in contact with me. If you ain’t really hollerin’ at me, I’m not just gonna call you and be like, “Hey bruh, what’s up? I’m in a wheelchair.”

But I had ran into Money B and he told Shock, and Shock came by and saw me in that wheelchair and it kinda hurt him. He was like, “We really need to do something for you, man. We gotta try to bust a move and do something to make this shit right.” I told him I was down for whatever.

As far as [Shock’s] article is concerned, I’m not really gonna go into it. [Laughs] I’m just gonna say that. The focus is to try to get some awareness up with my condition and my situation. My situation is that I’ll have to have surgery to get my shit corrected. So I’m trying to raise awareness and get as much assistance with it as possible just to make it happen. But shout out to Shock-G for his effort in getting the word out and letting people know about my condition. His way of doing it is unconventional but it’s appreciated.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Dc8I23sCeI

SFBG But is your condition the result of back injuries or the tumor you had to have removed?

Saafir My back wasn’t really the problem, it was moreso internal. I had a cancerous tumor in my spinal cord and they had to get it out as soon as possible. That was around ’05. The timeline was based off of Shock’s own memories and some of the details got mixed up. I had to have the surgery to get the tumor out. The doctor told me that if I didn’t take it out, by the time I was in my later 40s I would probably be paralyzed. And it’s ironic because I did the surgery and I’m still kinda in that situation. I’m not a paraplegic; my legs are still active and whatnot, it’s just getting the right kind of treatment to spark what needs to be sparked in order to get my legs to work.

I have insurance but insurance only covers so much so I’m trying to make sure I’m able to fully meet the criteria so I can step back into the position I need to be in.

But moreso than that, you have to have a stable environment to even complete the things you need to do with the doctor as far as transportation and living situation. I’ve been out here doing this on my own, but I’m trying to get reestablished into a stable enough situation where I can do the things that need to be done in succession. You have to have a foundation in order to do that so that’s what I’m really focusing on right now, trying to establish that foundation, so that I can complete that.

SFBG Why did you wait so long to reach out to anyone about your condition?

Saafir I didn’t really go into telling people I was in a wheelchair or disabled because a lot of people don’t want to be bothered with it. They pretend like they do but in reality they don’t really want to deal with that shit. And I understand that. I don’t take it personally. So to avoid any harsh feelings or bitterness towards either party, I just keep it to myself and just deal with it. I don’t have a problem with asking anybody for help or allowing people to help me or whatnot but people have their own agenda, people have their own lives. And I need a bit of assistance just to do the basic things, getting into the bathtub, that’s like a marathon for me. And alone it’s damn near impossible. There’s not a lot of people there so I just try to stay concrete and just try to tread through it.

SFBG Why couldn’t they help you at the laser surgery clinic in Arizona that Shock had taken you to?

Saafir At the time I felt that what may have been stopping me from being able to walk was scar tissue surrounding the spinal cord and creating pressure to where my legs wasn’t responding. I had saw that on TV one night on a commercial so I called them. The guy I initially talked to led me to believe that I had action, that it could be done.

My first surgery was like, seven or eight or hours. They split me open. I had to heal for like, 10 months. I was like, “I can’t go through that again.” If I have to I will, but if I don’t have to, I really don’t want to. So I thought the laser surgery would be a good alternative.

Shock helped me get the money together to do the surgery because it’s a private practice. So we get out there and they do a checkup on me and they basically say they didn’t have the facility to do the kind of surgery I needed. I thought that was bullshit. I guess it was more of a situation where they didn’t want to take a chance on messing up something more than what it was, so they just decided, “We don’t really know what was there prior so we don’t want to go in and mess anything up.” And I’m like, man, if you’re afraid to do the surgery, say that. Don’t tell me you don’t have the facility; you just afraid to do the surgery. You know how it is, a lot of them practices are just there to take your money. So we had to come home.

SFBG What’s your prognosis now?

Saafir I got back in touch with the doctor who did the initial surgery. He asked me, “Why you didn’t tell me your legs were going out?” And I was like, “I left messages for you, man, to let you know what was going on with my condition.” I never got a call back so I figured that he couldn’t really do anything for me. And I left multiple messages. But we got past it.

He said, “I think I can get you back walking, we just have to figure out what is the ’cause of the decline.” So that’s what we’re trying to do now. I gotta take a few more MRIs. And from the MRIs they should be able to spot exactly what the decline is and they should be able to work back from there. But again, that shit costs money so I’m trying to raise funds to be able to get that all done.

I keep missing my appointments because I don’t have a car. I try to take the bus to BART but I need assistance getting on the bus. I need to raise funds so I can get back and forth to these appointments and just to help with the basic shit I need every day.

I can’t really move at the capacity I was moving at before. I’m a hustler. I go out and get it on my own, you feel me? But you really don’t understand the blessing you have to be healthy and have access to all your limbs and all your faculties. Don’t take it for granted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o9v7cgA3xIM

SFBG Have you still been making music at this time?

Saafir I’m trying to get a place where I can complete an album but right now I’m just writing songs and doing little stuff. But I’m definitely writing about my experience, how I’m dealing with it and going through it. A lot of people look at my shit from the ’90s and think I’m going to do the exact same shit now and that’s just not reality. I’ve evolved as a person.

At that time I was a young man and mentally I was in a young frame of mind. Now I’m a grown ass man and I done been through a lot. Life has shown me a lot more shit than it had at the time when I was doing what I was doing. I tried to be innovative and poetic about what I was doing and at the time that was the flavor.

Now, I don’t even feel like that level of dedication or creativity would even be appreciated. That’s not saying that I’m not going to try to do it. It wouldn’t be a situation where it’s a street record or a hip-hop record. I just call it reality rap. I don’t particularly rap like I did in the ’90s anymore. I’m more focused on substance and content as opposed to how I swing a rhyme. But I’m always going to swing a rhyme with flavor. My rhythm has never been a problem. I understand the rhythm and the beat so it’s nothing for me to do it.

For the full story, see: Injured Player in the Game.

Psychic Dream Astrology: March 20-26, 2013

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ARIES

March 21-April 19

If you could do anything in your current situations, what would you do, Aries? Instead of strategizing based on what you think you can get away with, try taking some deep risks this week. It’s an excellent time to start something altogether new or to try new approaches to some old stuff; either way it’s time to go for gold.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

When things get messed up, the worst thing you can do is to involve yourself in power struggles or conflicts out of frustration, Taurus. Notice the difference between feeling threatened and actually being threatened. Be the master of your own reactions and participate in ways that are true to you and not fear-inspired self-defense.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Look at the big picture this week, Gemini. Keep yourself focused on taking care of the things and people that make you happy and a watchful eye out for your old habits of self-sabotage. You are on the verge of creating what you want, so make sure you are ready to receive it when it comes.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Don’t wait for everyone else to change or for your opportunities to perfect themselves, Moonchild. Strive to participate in ways that support you in going where you want to go, not just in maintaining the status quo. Trust in yourself and invest in your passions this week.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Get your bearings, Leo. This week you will find peace in tending to your foundations; clean your home, pay your bills and reach out to the folks you love. Create solid ground to stand on before you make any further changes. By fortifying yourself you will be paving the way to making good decisions.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The way you participate creates a ripple effect, Virgo. If you’re feeling defensive and pissed off, people are likely to know it and try to protect themselves. Be direct about where you’re at this week to avoid drama. In this game you’ll find that honesty trumps evasion and diplomacy beats aggression.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

Patience, my dear Libra, you need patience. This week all signs point to doing it slowly and steadily, and waiting for the results to come in even slower than that. Be protective of the things you cherish and work hard to create the conditions you crave. You can’t control outcomes, but you can control how you participate.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

In order to win you’ve got to play, Scorpio. This week you may get a little knocked around but don’t quit! You are being challenged to make choices that support your dreams; it’s easy to do that when everything is going your way, but when the going gets rough you’ve got to stay in the game, your fears be damned.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

If you project your desires onto others, you end up creating layers of confusion that will have unfortunate consequences down the road. By accepting situations and people for where they’re at right now, you can work with them to come to a common goal. If you cannot accept, retreat until you feel more receptive.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

Consistently returning to your fears is like praying at the alter of them. Notice the difference between what’s happening at this very moment and what you worry you may one go down; make every effort to direct yourself towards positive thinking, Capricorn. Your thoughts and attitudes will lay the foundation for your outcomes this week.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Be on guard against the tricks of your mind that are generated by anxiety and self-doubt, Water Bearer. On your quest for happiness and a high quality of life, you have to find new ways of coping with stress. Don’t make decisions when you feel nervous this week; ride the wave of nervousness until it passes and figure out what to do only then.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

Be the embodiment of your clear ambitions. This week it’s all about gettin’ ‘er done, pal, and that will require you to have faith in your vision and the chutzpah to act on it. All you’ve got to do is get the ball rolling, not to make everything perfect; don’t undermine the wisdom of action with too much self-doubt, Pisces.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

 

Noise Pop 2013: Califone, ‘Scene Unseen,’ and DIIV

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Will 2013 be the year that Noise Pop began downsizing? Or, is the festival simply adjusting its focus towards smaller, rising acts? Either way, this year’s lineup was surprising from the get-go, eschewing the name-brand, Flaming Lips-y headliners in favor of rising, blog-friendly outfits like Toro Y Moi and DIIV. Sadly, I couldn’t occupy nine venues at a time, so here’s a rundown of the Noise Pop shows I did see this past weekend.

CALIFONE
Having listened to Califone‘s records for over a decade, yet never seen it live, I was curious about the band’s strategy in translating its studio material to the stage. From its introductory statement, Roomsound (2001), to the extended freakout-jams of Heron King Blues (2004), to last year’s Sometimes Good Weather Follows Bad People, Califone’s sound has always been production-oriented, augmenting the rustic twang of blues and roots music with an equally faded, rusted, precarious palette of electronic sound. No one merges the old and the new quite like Califone in the studio; the band’s records are visionary, but sadly, its live show didn’t quite measure up.

My first impression: no electronics. Frontperson Tim Rutili’s four-piece band consisted simply of two guitars, bass, and drums, leaving behind a significant part of the Califone identity. While this stripped-down approach isn’t necessarily a bad move, it requires a batch of songs strong enough to resonate after being whittled down to their skeletal forms.

While certain pieces thrived under the minimal treatment (“The Orchids,” “Electric Fence,” “Bottles and Bones”) others began spinning their wheels after a while (“Ape-Like,” “All Tied,” by Rutili’s side project Red Red Meat), without electronic ornamentation to keep the dynamics compelling. Yet, whenever the instrumentation was lacking, Rutili’s raspy voice and slide guitar came to the rescue, and picked up most of the slack.

While I would’ve liked to see them approach their studio material with more ambition and imagination, Rutili and Co. certainly made the trip to Cafe Du Nord worthwhile.

SCENE UNSEEN
After Califone, I headed to 1015 Folsom to catch the last two sets of Scene Unseen, the club’s attempt to piece together the remnants of the “chillwave” scene of summer 2010. NYC’s Washed Out and recent Bay-Area transplant Toro Y Moi played DJ sets, one after the other, both of which seemed to amount to little more than standing in front of a MacBook, and pushing play. So, those seeking a “performance” were likely disappointed. However, both musicians put on competent, engaging sets, showing a deft understanding of flow and dynamics, and putting the crowd into a well-controlled frenzy.

Washed Out‘s crowd-pleasing-est moment was likely Todd Terje’s “Inspector Norse,” the space-disco extravaganza that every critic seemed to embrace in 2012. The best thing I heard for the first time was “Holding On” by Classixx, a house anthem that played like a poor-man’s “Digital Love” by Daft Punk, yet trounced most of the competition.

Toro Y Moi’s set was more diverse, and less reliant on four-on-the-floor percussion than Washed Out’s. Jumping from a Larry Levan remix of Positive Force’s “We Got the Funk,” to Daphni, Purity Ring, Mariah Carey, and most memorably, Ginuwine’s “Pony,” the lack of genre-specificity was reminiscent of Anything in Return, Toro Y Moi’s new LP that rejects the notion of chillwave for something warmer, more personable, and harder to classify.

It seems that Washed Out and Toro Y Moi have differing priorities at this point, with one staying comfortably within the confines of chillwave, and the other exploring beyond its boundaries. As a result, there wasn’t much of a unifying scene to be found at Scene Unseen, but it was a treat to see both artists, in a one-two punch.

DIIV
One of the most promising groups within the current revival of shimmery, glassy dream-pop, NYC’s DIIV put on a truly impressive show for a one-album band. While it simply doesn’t have enough material at this point for an all-killer-no-filler, hour-long set, the band showed a great ability to adapt its recordings for the stage. Upping the tempos on a handful of songs, and veering into some extended jams, it managed to subvert expectations constantly, however slightly, making for a way more compelling show than a note-for-note playthrough of its 2012 debut Oshin would have been.

“Air Conditioning” was a big highlight, rejecting the laid-back swagger of the studio version, for a fast, propulsive, borderline-motorik groove that recalled the Velvet Underground and Ride. “Wait” and “How Long Have You Known?” were similarly impressive, rounding out the slam-dunk middle section of Oshin. The big surprise of the night came with a cover of Stereolab’s “Blue Milk,” (Bradford Cox’ favorite song, perhaps), a number that fit in seamlessly with the band’s glassy, shiny guitar sound, yet pushed its penchant for droney, chugging dynamics to a new extreme.

However, the elephant in the room: a lot of DIIV’s material sounds the same. Tracks like “Past Lives,” “Earthboy,” and “Sometime,” feature slight variations on the same guitar melody, and I’m still not sure how that makes me feel.

Whether its music is modular, lazy, or just underdeveloped this early in the game, there’s no doubt the band has a lot of room for refinement. Despite that, it was pretty thrilling to witness DIIV at (hopefully) the start of its lifespan, hungry to put its potential on display.

Psychic Dream Astrology: February 27-March 5, 2013

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Mercury is Retrograde! For the smoothest ride reiterate, simplify, and double-check, people.

ARIES

March 21-April 19

You are going in the right direction, Aries, and what a relief that is! This week please continue to believe in yourself and to channel your love towards the people and situations you care most about. Positive reinforcements will help all matters flourish; share the best of what you’ve got.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

Reach out to the people or even the places that help you reconnect with what makes life worthwhile this week, Taurus. You are capable of great creativity but innovation isn’t enough to point your life towards where you want it to go. You need intimacy and love; open up and let it in, pal.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Do not try to take control of your life this week. Don’t repair, control or convince anyone (including yourself), of your needs while you’re at it. Let your life reveal itself to you, Gemini. It’s not yet clear where things are going and only time will reveal how to best manage your opportunities and trials.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

In order to bloom you have to be willing to change, Moonchild. Be true to yourself as you figure out how to participate differently in old or familiar dynamics. This may require your willingness to suffer minor losses for your greater benefit. Take it slow as you shift things for the better this week.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Taking full responsibility for your life and the things you are committed it to needs to be priority-one, Leo. Your world thrives based on the delicate balance between how you’re handling the present in concert with what you’ve got on the horizon. Don’t invite anything new into your life this week.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

There’s no rush, Virgo! You don’t have all the information that you need yet, and you need to let things develop further, no matter how much you would like them to move faster. This week you should let people and situations reveal themselves to you. Pay attention to what you are shown and let it inform your plans.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

The thing that works about "the Secret" and other manifestation programs out there is basically this: where you focus your energy most intensely is where you reap the greatest gains. The problem with this is if you obsess on your fears you will manifest exactly what you least desire. Invest in best-case scenarios, Libra.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

Meeting people in the middle is hard to do if one end is too demanding. Whether you’re dealing with a hard-ass or you’re the rigid one, strive towards compromise this week. In order for there to be a creative reshuffling you need to be willing to concede some of your preferences for the greater good.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Instead of fretting over what you can’t accomplish and what might go wrong, use your energy to find creative ways to stay in the game. You are capable of bringing things to the next level, but it will take both the willingness to trust in yourself and the courage to follow-through, be damned your fears.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

There’s no easy way to do what you’ve gotta do, Capricorn. The simple things are often the hardest to pull off, but also the most important. Be true to yourself and don’t make false compromises for the sake of what you think others expect of you. Let the future happen, and let it be based on your true self.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

You’ve got to do things in self-appropriate ways, Aquarius. If you achieve all of your goals but don’t feel good about it, it’s a wasted stab at success. This week, check to make sure that the way you are doing things is working for you. If you’re plagued by bad feelings even when things are going "well" you’re not doing something right.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

When you stop reflecting on what’s happening inside of you it’s easy to loose track of why you’re feeling what you feel. Instead of figuring things out, strive to reconnect to your motivations and inspirations this week. You may need to change your actions or your mind but only self-administered TLC will yield answers, Pisces.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Psychic Dream Astrology: January 30-February 5, 2013

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Jan. 30-Feb. 5, 2013

ARIES

March 21-April 19

You may feel caught up in petty power struggles this week, even if it’s against your better judgment. Instead of tallying who owes what to whom, stay focused on your responsibilities. Be true to yourself, follow through on your word, and allow yourself be vulnerable with others when it feels right.

TAURUS

April 20-May 20

If you’re plagued with doubt things will feel wrong, no matter how right-on your choices are. Do what you have to in order to cultivate as much calm and peace within your self as you can this week, Taurus. Eat well and sleep enough. You needn’t be perfect, but you do need to stop berating yourself.

GEMINI

May 21-June 21

Devote your time and attention to the things that are giving you the greatest returns, Gemini. Don’t scatter your energy by looking to the past or obsessing on what’s not working for you. Invest in your successes in the efforts to multiply them and express gratitude whenever you feel it this week.

CANCER

June 22-July 22

Things cannot stay the same. Change is for the best, no matter how scary that prospect may be. Tie up loose ends, do your spring-cleaning early, and generally clear the decks, Moonchild. Something new is entering your life and the more open you are to it, the better.

LEO

July 23-Aug. 22

Acting gradually can feel vulnerable. Moving fast creates a distracting momentum while slowing your pace down forces you to experience all of your feelings as they come up. This week’s progress will happen little by little; take note of what’s uncomfortable and let it help you to better understand yourself.

VIRGO

Aug. 23-Sept. 22

The particulars in your life that are out of your control may tug at your brains and stress you out this week. Keep your attention focused on the big picture, Virgo, and let the minutia work themselves out in their own time. Don’t try to dam the flow of your life, even if you don’t understand where it’s taking you.

LIBRA

Sept. 23-Oct. 22

It’s hard to get what you want if you don’t know what that is, Libra. Concentrate on figuring out what is true for you for reals, so that you’ll be ready to receive it when it comes your way. The best recipe for self-determination this week is equal parts working with what you’ve got and innovating your path, pal.

SCORPIO

Oct. 23-Nov. 21

It’s a really important time for you, Scorpio. The way you do what you do will have consequences for a long time coming. Compulsive behaviors create blind spots on the roadway of life that easily lead to trouble, so watch out for yours. Take responsibility for how you choose to participate this week.

SAGITTARIUS

Nov. 22-Dec. 21

Nothing is forever, and it’s important to not be too invested in the things that aren’t working. Practice the fine art of "live and let live" or "nonattachment" or "this too shall pass," Sagittarius. Things are changing of their own accord. Don’t take the events of your life so personally that you forget to be interested in what they’re trying tell to you.

CAPRICORN

Dec. 22-Jan. 19

You may be tempted to run over the details of your life with a fine-toothed comb this week, but that will not help you at all. You’re likely to think the worst if you overanalyze things! Your life is shifting so much that you will do best by riding the waves of change instead of strategizing the best time to jump in the water.

AQUARIUS

Jan. 20-Feb. 18

Rejection, failure and disappointments are part of life. On some level, you must decide to take on the challenges that are being presenting to you instead of sinking under the weight of them. While you may not be able to be optimistic this week, you should strive to make opportunities out of your hardships, Aquarius.

PISCES

Feb. 19-March 20

If you push yourself too far ahead of what you can emotionally handle, things will backfire, no matter how inspired you are, Pisces. You’ve got to trust that there is time enough for everything that you are meant to do. Pace yourself steadily enough to stay in the game but slow enough that you play it to the best of your abilities.

Jessica Lanyadoo has been a Psychic Dreamer for 18 years. Check out her website at www.lovelanyadoo.com to contact her for an astrology or intuitive reading.

Sharing the sun

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news@sfbg.com

Dan Rosen, the co-founder of Solar Mosaic, told us there was an ironic note to the devastation that Hurricane Sandy recently brought to New York City. The same power grid that helps create such fierce hurricanes through the burning of fossil fuels was unable to distribute power to thousands of homes, in mostly low-income neighborhoods, for weeks in the wake of storm.

Sandy brought to the forefront a huge energy challenge: how to move over to renewable energy fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change and the killer storms in generates, build more efficient and reliable grids, and ensure that everyone can equitably participate in the new renewable energy economy. Bay Area energy entrepreneurs such as Rosen are working on innovative energy models that address those issues.

So far, the solar debate has mostly been between proponents of personal solar projects such as residential rooftop installations, also known as distributed generation, and those who back industrial-scale projects in far away plains and deserts.

But Rosen and other entrepreneurs are championing a middle route: They propose vastly increasing the prevalence of large solar power arrays and other renewable power plants close to where the energy is consumed, and opening up creative new ways for more people to buy into those projects.

This kind of approach to energy has the potential to democratize power production, avoid costly and environmentally unsound transmissions lines, and prevent utilities from monopolizing renewable energy.

 

CROWD FUNDING SOLAR

One of the barriers to the proliferation of solar is the relatively high upfront cost of purchasing and installing the panels. But with the rising costs of fossil fuel and the government incentives around renewable energy, investments in solar infrastructure can pay off big.

Bloomberg New Energy Finance crunched the numbers and according to a report that came out in June, large solar projects may soon pay a 5-9 percent return on investment. Big financial institutions and other corporate players have taken note of these figures and potential for profit they represent.

For example, Google has invested almost $1 billion in renewable energy that it plans to sell into the grid, including opening a $75 million fund for residential rooftop solar this past September. The problem is that big lenders are only looking for large-scale solar deals in order to cover their costs.

Enter Rosen and Solar Mosaic, who are coming up with a way to harness the power of crowds to fund the local and decentralized projects that big financial institutions tend to overlook. Solar Mosaic specializes in raising seed capital for solar projects by collecting many small investments into one pool.

That idea won Solar Mosaic a $2 million grant from the Department of Energy’s SunShot Initiative, and attracted $3.5 million in venture capital.

“Our job — not just as Mosaic, but as society — is to make sure that the next energy economy has participation and ownership from millions of people and communities around the world,” Rosen said. “Crowd funding is really the beginning of a broader movement to democratize and distribute capital — enabling people to invest in projects they otherwise wouldn’t have had access to.”

This vision proved itself initially with a successful Kickstarter-like crowd funding platform that facilitated the development of five solar projects with the participation of more than 400 small investors and over $350,000 raised. The money went to fund solar panel installations on the roofs of community organizations in California and Arizona, including People’s Grocery in Oakland.

But there’s a catch. As the law currently stands, Solar Mosaic, or any company engaged in crowd funding, cannot offer any interest on the money invested by small online contributors. Since there is only a limited pool of people who believe in an energy revolution enough to shell out money for free, these examples are not entirely replicable. “We chose to start with those ones because they have very strong constituencies and we were using more a philanthropic model,” Rosen said.

The new model the company is developing is “getting people who are not necessarily just environmentalists invested in the clean energy economy,” Rosen said. “I want people who are like, ‘Oh, cool, I can make [a decent return] if I invest in this,’ and that gets more stakeholders than Sierra Club members. Let’s have millions of stakeholders with skin in the game.”

So how to move forward? The controversial federal Jumpstart Our Business Startups (JOBS) Act passed in April by Congress included a much-trumpeted crowd funding provision. The bill charged the Securities and Exchange Commission with the responsibility of putting meat on the legislation’s skeleton.

The SEC has until the Dec. 31 deadline to come up a set of rules allowing start-ups to gather small investments from ordinary people online while still offering provisions to protect the public from fraud. Many are skeptical that the SEC will complete the rule-writing process by the end of year.

Impatient to wait for the SEC and unsure whether the provisions will be practical for their purposes, Solar Mosaic is following a different path. It is using the funds raised already to pay for a lengthy and expensive filing with the SEC to upgrade its financial status.

Rosen said he couldn’t discuss details, but he said the new status should grant Solar Mosaic some leeway on offering financial returns to a wider variety of investors.

 

ENERGY IN THE CLOUD

Investment opportunities in local solar projects may be a good way to get people financially involved in clean energy but what about Californians who simply wish to purchase renewable energy for their homes or business?

California leads the country in rooftop solar installation, much to the credit of two programs: rebates that offset the cost of the panels through the California Solar Initiative and a program that allows those who own a rooftop with solar panels to offset their utility bills with credit from the energy they produce. California Public Utilities Commission statistics indicate these programs are largely responsible for some 1,379 megawatts of solar that have been installed in California at 131,874 different sites; about as much energy as one large nuclear reactor.

There has been record growth in adoption of solar by homeowners in the past two years, according to the CPUC, including a 364 percent jump in low income areas in since 2007. Yet that’s a far shot from the goal of 12,000 megawatts of local clean energy by 2020 called for by Gov. Jerry Brown in July.

Californians who do not have savings or a high credit score or who have shaded roofs usually can’t participate in the state’s renewable energy programs. But the most significant obstacle to increased participation is that only homeowners are eligible, while renters must contend with whatever power they can get from their utility. In a city like San Francisco, where almost two-third of residents rents, that is the overwhelming majority of citizens.

One solution that would circumvent the property-owning restrictions is allowing people to subscribe to solar gardens and other renewable energy facilities in their area and receive the same credit on their utility bill for their share of energy delivered to the grid. Decoupling where energy is made from who is able to buy it “allows everyone to participate, it makes it so it doesn’t matter if you are rich or poor, the only thing that matters that you have a utility bill,” said Tom Price of CleanPath, a solar project investment firm.

California Senate Bill 843, introduced by Sen. Lois Wolk (D-Davis) and coauthored by Price, attempted to create the legal framework for this kind of virtual transaction. Over the summer, it died in the Assembly Committee on Utilities and Commerce as result of late session lobbying by Pacific Gas & Electric and Southern California Edison. Notably, the state’s other largest utility, San Diego Gas and Electric, supported SB843. Also supporting the bill was a wide and diverse coalition ranging from the US Department of Defense to the Ella Baker Center for Human Rights. Wolk plans to reintroduce SB843 in the next legislative session.

Price and other supporters see the bill’s eventual passage as inevitability: “In an age when so many transaction are virtual [and] we can put so many parts of our lives in the cloud, why can’t we put energy in the cloud and let people virtually subscribe to it? From the grid’s perspective, there is no difference.”

 

COOPERATIVE ENERGY

Democratizing the green energy industry is about allowing everyone to participate easily, but it is also about empowering those who are typically left out of the conversation.

Low-income and marginalized communities are often the ones most impacted by the environmental and health effects of burning fossils fuels. As the green energy revolution expands, those same communities will potentially be last in line to benefit from or exert influence over the transformation.

Considering that solar can be small scale and still financially sound in the long term, “there is an opportunity to rebuild the energy infrastructure…from the grassroots,” said Shiva Patel who co-founded Energy Solidarity Cooperative. Patel and his partner Dave Ron want to set up multi-stakeholder cooperatives that promote ownership and decision-making by consumers.

In a low-income neighborhood, residents are most likely tenants with little leverage and no eligibility for California’s renewable energy incentives. The cooperative model suggests residents can pool space, financial resources, and labor to become players in small-scale power production.

Normally, consumers considered downstream along the energy supply chain do not have the financial or political means to make decisions about the energy their communities use. “We are flipping that on its head,” said Ron “We want those people to be upstream. We are taking a very horizontal approach.

The nuts and bolts of the coop’s structure may be new, but the distinction between those who own and control the community power project and those who finance it is important. There are three types of members in the cooperative: consumers, workers, and community investors. The consumers initiate the community power project and then maintain ownership of it. They contribute labor and money toward the project according to their ability. The workers are a group of energy experts organized into a collective that provide support and advice for the project. Decisions about the coop and its projects are left to the consumers and workers. Community investors are drawn to the project by crowd funding, but financial support does not buy them a decision making role. Once the upfront costs of the project are paid back to the community investors, consumers can keep the revenue or use it to foster more community power projects.

One source of inspiration for the duo is Co-op Power based in Boston, which has more than 150 full-time green jobs with living wages, spawning 10 businesses in the decade since its founding.

“We had a large number of people trying to solve the puzzle of how communities could come together and create sustainable energy models,” said President and CEO Lynn Benander. “It’s the brain child of many people.”

What the fuck, Chuck: No, Ed Lee is not God

76

So who were the big winners in the election? You could argue Ron Conway; you could argue surprise D5 winner London Breed. But to say it was all about Ed Lee?

Actually, no.

Every one of the initiatives that Lee backed was also supported by the entire progressive leadership on the board and almost every progressive group in the city, and other than Prop. B, there was little in the way of funded or credible opposition. The Yes on C campaign was run by the affordable housing folks, not the mayor. The mayor didn’t even endorse Prop. A, the City College parcel tax, until late in the game.

Oh, and the mayor’s appointee to the Community College Board? Got clobbered. The guy the mayor wanted in District 7? Out of the running.

The real story here — aside from the supervisors races, where I don’t think any one operation or political alliance won overall — was the remarkable civic consensus on the ballot measures. If Ed Lee had been out of town all fall, they all still would have won.

I know Chuck thinks the mayor is the greatest ever, but in this case, his impact was at best a wash.

 

 

 

Déjà vu all over again

0

‘Medal of Honor: Warfighter’ (Danger Close/Electronic Arts)

Xbox 360, PS3, PC

GAMER I hate to start off a review by highlighting the competition, but — Call of Duty. The biggest name in gaming casts a long shadow, and a good number of publishers are happy to step aside and let Call of Duty have the holiday months.

Publisher Electronic Arts has more aggressive plans. Last year they pitted their Battlefield franchise against Call of Duty, and made a pretty good go at taking the crown. But that was last year. The Call of Duty franchise has at least three different developers working at getting a game out every year; can EA compete on an annual level when they have just one developer working on Battlefield?

Enter Medal of Honor: Warfighter. The sequel to a reboot of another World War II franchise, Warfighter sports the same engine as Battlefield 3 and to EA probably seemed just the thing for the off-year between Battlefield entries. But competition isn’t always healthy. If last week’s hefty day-one patch — which introduced a litany of simple fixes and features that should have been in the game to begin with — is an indication, Warfighter‘s release date became more important than the quality of its content.

Warfighter‘s single-player campaign isn’t as egregiously inconsistent as the 2010 Medal of Honor reboot, but it’s hardly memorable. Dropping its predecessor’s gritty, controversial setting of Afghanistan for a hammy international terrorist plot, Warfighter delivers nothing gamers aren’t familiar with. You get cinematic set-pieces, characters delivering a mish-mash of military jargon and acronyms, and plenty of shooting at bad guys; there’s no real context and no real stakes.

Battlefield 3’s Frostbite 2 engine provides nice lighting and animation, but most of the pretty environments are window dressing on cheap thrills and glorified shooting galleries. Car chases through Pakistan and Dubai are nice diversions with solid mechanics, considering we’re talking about an FPS, but you’re probably better off jumping directly into multiplayer.

Fewer frustrations inhabit the game’s multiplayer, and it’s a good bet more time and care went into this part of the Warfighter package. Gamers looking for something that’s not Call of Duty will find Warfighter multiplayer serves up military excitement that’s similarly addicting, if safe.

Military shooters can mine real emotional territory and there are amazing stories to be told, but Warfighter isn’t really interested in telling them. With more time spent on development we might have gotten an interesting game, but its fall arrival is intended to fill a hole in this year’s release calendar, and its creative successes are an afterthought. Warfighter passes the time amiably and it’s hard to chastise it for giving people what they want, but it’s also a lesson in why the annual franchise model doesn’t always work. (Peter Galvin)

The strange deal behind the SF Weekly sale

13

We all knew something like this was coming. Village Voice Media, owner of SF Weekly and 12 other alternative papers, has been looking for a way out of a seemingly intractable bind for some time now.

See, the sex ads the VVM sells on its Backpage web site have created a huge stir. After NY Times columnist Nicholas Kristof started a moral crusade to rid the world of the demonic prostitution ads, a lot of national and local advertisers decided they didn’t want to be affiliated with VVM, so they pulled millions of dollars worth of print advertising. Then Goldman Sachs dumped its ownership stake. And since some of the VVM papers were already doing poorly, the cascade of bad news was a real threat to the chain’s bottom line — and possibly its future. VVM was already underwater on its bank loans, and the Bank of Montreal had in effect foreclosed and taken control of the company’s finances.

Oh, but there’s nothing that could be done about Backpage, since (according to Reuters) it pulls in about $3 million a month in sex-ad revenue. That money was paying the bankers off and keeping the whole operation afloat.

So what is a poor predatory chain to do? Can’t live with Backpage; can’t live without it.

It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what Mike Lacey and Jim Larkin have been thinking about: If Backpage were just conveniently put into a separate company, then everyone would have plausible deniability. So suddenly Village Voice Media becomes Voice Media Holdings, under new management — that is, the same management that’s always been there, except for Lacey and Larkin, who now own Backpage. The headlines blare: SF Weekly has been sold! No more evil Backpage! Come on back, noble advertisers!

But let’s remember: Lacey and Larkin are Village Voice Media. They built the company and hand-picked the senior management. I know how hard it is for an owner to give up his newspaper; these guys are control freaks and there’s no way they were walking away totally from VVM.

Scott Tobias, the new CEO, isn’t responding to my messages. Neither is Lacey. But let’s take a look at the essential element here: How did Tobias and his team come up with the cash to buy VVM — which isn’t worth what it was five years ago, but is still a significant media property? How did they actually “buy” it when the Bank of Montreal owns most of VVM and would want to be paid back some $70 million in outstanding loans? How would they find private financing for a company that couldn’t pay its bills without the Backpage revenue that will suddenly be going away?

Tobias told Reuters that “some private investors” were found, and maybe so, but I bet it’s this simple: The deal was financed with the Bank of Lacey and the Larkin National Trust. Those two almost certainly still hold the note on the company, and thus are still in a way the owners, and will probably still play a management role — if only because their money (and whatever deal they wheedled out of the Bank of Montreal) is still in the game.

So yes, you can say that SF Weekly and its brother and sister papers have been “sold.” But unless Nick Kristof and the advertisers who cut off the dollars are pretty damn dumb, they’ll take a hard look at this and say: Really?

All in the game

0

arts@sfbg.com

FILM How might filmmaker Nicholas Jarecki measure the success of Arbitrage, his debut feature about a hedge fund honcho’s attempt to sell his way out of desperate circumstances? Perhaps a gauge can be found in the response the writer-director received at a recent East Hampton screening for a roomful of magnates such as John Paulson, figures who provided some of the initial inspiration for Arbitrage.

"I think the net worth of the room was somewhere around $20 or $30 billion," recalls Jarecki on recent visit to San Francisco. "They came up to me after the screening and said, ‘You know, we really liked the film and we just have to tell you — it made us uneasy from beginning to end. Really, what you put up there is our nightmare.’ I said, ‘Well, thank you.’"

The boyish Jarecki looks as pleased as a high-roller who has just bought low and sold high; he’s crafted a capitalist all-American horror story of sorts, for billionaires as well as the fascinated and repulsed 99 percent. As Arbitrage opens, its slick protagonist, Robert Miller (Richard Gere), is trying to close the sale of his life, on his 60th birthday: the purchase of his company by a banking goliath. The trick is completing the deal before his fraud, involving hundreds of millions of dollars, is uncovered, though the whip-smart daughter who works for him (Brit Marling) might soon be onto him.

Meanwhile, Miller’s gaming his personal affairs as well, juggling time between a model wife (Susan Sarandon) and a Gallic gallerist mistress (Laetitia Casta), when sudden-death circumstances threaten to destroy everything, and the power broker’s livelihood — and very existence — ends up in the hands of a young man (Nate Parker) with ambitions of his own.

It’s a realm that Jarecki is all too familiar with. Though like brothers Andrew (2003’s Capturing the Friedmans) and Eugene (2005’s Why We Fight), Jarecki’s first love is documentaries (his first film, 2006’s The Outsider, covered auteur James Toback), his family is steeped in the business world. Both his parents were commodities traders, and Jarecki, who describes himself as a "computer geek in my youth," once owned his own web development firm and internet access provider, among other ventures. Nonetheless, the filmmaker —who graduated from New York University film school at 19, served as a technical adviser on the 1995 film Hackers, and co-wrote the script 2008’s The Informers — continued to hear the siren call of feature film.

"I had knowledge of venture capital and the markets, but at the same time it was, what’s a credit default? What is this?" he remembers of the time he started writing Arbitrage‘s script in 2008. Bernard Madoff interested him less than "someone who was a good guy but who became corrupted along the way and started to believe in his own invincibility and his own press releases."

Jarecki found his "King Lear-esque" nouveau robber baron in Richard Gere, after convincing the actor to take a chance on a first-time director. He ended up digging in deep with Gere and the rest of the cast during a month of rehearsals, research, and rewrites. "I was doing my own mad arbitrage and putting the film together — the voluminous amounts of documents they make you sign, and I borrowed many millions of dollars from a major bank," Jarecki explains. "So it was rehearsing in one room and calling the wire desk on the other."

As a result, the moviemaker found himself understanding Miller’s part only too well: "When I was writing and the characters had to do something, the person I modeled the decision on was myself. What would I do? And the more surprising and frightening the answers, the more I felt I was onto something."

There’s a memorable moment when Miller’s daughter confronts him on his transgressions and he explains, in a moment of startling, almost lamely ineffectual self-consciousness, that he’s a patriarch simply playing his part. Still, Miller doesn’t believe it’s the end of days for those men gathering in East Hampton screening rooms.

"There was a joke I had with the distributor, ‘Will this still be relevant when it comes out?’" he muses. "Yet every week there’s a new revelation of a new fraud: MF Global losing billions of dollars in customer funds in unauthorized trading. A Knight Financial computer glitch and they lose $420 million — I think that’s the exact number lost in the movie — and it just happened two weeks ago. And now it’s, ‘Where’s my morning coffee?’"


ARBITRAGE opens Fri/14 in Bay Area theaters.