Happy birthday, Alvon

For Sunday, September 21, 2008


A good friend, Alvon Johnson, turned 57 last week. That was cause for celebration. He’s also recently engaged to marry the lovely Karen, his long-time sweetheart. That furthered the cause, so we invited them to our house for a birthday party.

Many readers should already know who I’m talking about. For a majority of music lovers and blues fans in the Bay Area, the name Alvon is synonymous with “Wow. I can’t stop dancing!”
Alvon is a local blues musician who has spent his life performing with industry legends like the Drifters, the Shirelles, Bobby Day, Otis Day and the Knights, Jimmie Rodgers, and the “Master of Drums” Babatunde Olatunji.

Now he has his own cluster of musicians, Alvon and the All-Star Band, who travel around the calendar, around the Bay Area. He performs at night clubs in San Francisco, Oakland, Vallejo, Calestoga, Benicia, Tahoe, Paris, Rome, Singapore, Australia, wherever music is needed. One night he might have four All Stars backing him, and other nights, depending on the venue, he might have 16.



My wife and I and Gino have been big Alvon fans for over a decade. Thank you, teacher friend Ed Muscolino, for taking me to my first Alvon performance many years ago. Alvon plays now at the Chris Club at least once a month. When he’s there, we’re there.

So, how did Alvon and I become such good friends that he celebrates his birthday and his engagement at our house? Well, it happened one night.

Alvon made a guttural sound in a song that reminded me of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, so during the break I asked him if he knew any Screamin’ Jay songs. He confessed he didn’t, but said he had “a rare video of one of Screamin’ Jay’s performances in Paris.”

I was out of my seat, beside myself. I’m crazy intrigued by Screamin’ Jay. I have all his music, but I’ve never seen him alive or on film, except for a cameo in a Jim Jarmuch movie, Mystery Train. “I’d love to see it.”
“Come by my house. I give you a copy.” I did. It was the most amazing theatrical performance I’ve ever seen, complete with smoking skulls and Jay’s Constipation Blues toilet on wheels. Gino and I watched it at three in the morning.

So, Alvon and I became friends, and he and Karen came to dinner. Gino cooked. The Kittrells came over, teacher friends. Carl is a musician.

Dinner talk:

“Alvon, I’m worried about the blues. Does it have a future? I went to the B.B. King Blues Club in Nashville a few years ago and it was acid rock. I went to John Lee Hooker’s Boom Boom Room in San Francisco this summer and it was Manhattan Transfer. We used to go to the Chris Club every weekend. Now the weekends are garage bands and metal. What’s going on? Is the blues dying?”

“Diehard blues fans are growing older,” was his take on it. “They don’t go out clubbing much anymore. Younger crowds have their own preferences. Blues Clubs are everywhere, but they can’t survive on a calendar of strictly blues.”

“You seem to stay busy. Are you content with your current success?”

“I’m happy, but never content. I always want to play bigger gigs. Corporations are hiring me now for private parties. I enjoy those because they pay well and the crowds appreciate my music. I also like playing overseas. The blues is popular in France and Italy. One club in Paris paid to fly us over, we spent two weeks, and I played one hour. That was nice.”

“So, where is your favorite place to perform?”

“It’s not a place. It’s the connection with the crowd. When I play a song, and the crowd responds by following me into it, I can feel that. It’s the greatest feeling in the world.”

“So if you booked more big shows, would you stop performing so often?”

“No way. I love playing. Playing is practice. If I went several weeks without performing, my fingers would fumble. I prefer being on stage as much as possible.”
“Do you have an agent?”

“Nope. Don’t like agents. Musicians who work for agents are subcontractors. The agent takes half the money for booking the show, then splits the other half with the musician.”

“So, what’s in store for Alvon and the All-Stars?”

“I’m starting a new organization. It’s called Caring Musicians. When someone wants to book a benefit, like the Katrina Relief Concert I played at the Majestic, they won’t have to make a dozen phone calls to book a dozen bands. They will make one call to Caring Musicians, and I’ll find them all the talent they need. Been working on that for a while.”

“If I wanted to retire and open a blues club, what would make it a success? A comfortable green room?”

Alvon shook his head. “Have a good backline. Amps and drums. Electronics. Bands will come. Gino, that was mighty fine shrimp stew.”

To see a great picture of Alvon at his best, buy a CD, find a show or book a show, visit www.alvon.org

I Harp

For Sunday, September 14, 2008

I can be a real pain in the arse at times. Yes, I am Mr. Nice Guy much of the time, Mr. Happy, Cha Cha Charlie, “Hey, how ya doin’?” but those who know me beyond casual acquaintance can loudly and convincingly attest that I can be a major botheration.
Here’s a phrase I hear a lot. “Oh, God. There he goes.” Or “Oh, no, not this again.”
I have faults. I carry around quite a list. Sure, we all have them. It’s what makes us human. To varying degrees we are all aware of our faults, and to varying degrees we all give a rat’s pitute and try to do something about them. Some of us are always trying to be better, others seem to relish their faults and flaunt them, others shirk and cringe and beat themselves up, and some have given up, attributing their imperfections to inherent cosmic chaos.
I get the distinct pleasure of turning mine into a couple of bucks by writing about them in the city paper.
I was lying in bed this morning, 4 a.m., awake while the rest of the house slept, contemplating my psyche, coping with a touch of insomnia that I’ve had all my life, doing some self analysis. I took to wondering, what makes me annoying? What bothers even my closest friends? What traits do I have that might make my wife harbor deep-seated, unspoken urges or fantasies to divorce me and run screaming from the building? What might make my own siblings say, “Steve’s a great brother, but…”?
One thing: I harp. Things stick in my craw. That’s a flaw. It’s hard to say what the thing might be, because there are so many, but when something bugs me, I can’t seem to shut up about it. I can’t leave it alone. I go on and on, moaning, whining, repeating myself, emailing, battering people’s eardrums with my grievance du jour. I analyze issues from 211 sides. I obsess. I obsess to excess, if that’s possible.
“Oh, God. There he goes.” Or, “Oh, no, here he comes.”
I’m immune to teasing and roasting. That’s not a flaw. I can sit there and let people make jokes at my expense for hours on end, and laugh as sincerely as they do. I have no problems being the punch line for my own weaknesses, frailties, and incapacities. But,,.

If someone questions my honesty, or my integrity and fairness, or my dedication to a mission, that eats a hole right through my brain. That upsets me at the cellular level. That drops a hot rock into my cauldron of emotions. My family and friends are then stuck listening to me wail.
Plato says everyone tries to do what’s right, always. Thus, I get hurt when someone accuses me of not trying. Conversely, I have to accept that they too are trying when they question my character. I guess that’s why things stick in my craw. I can’t find easy answers.
Another flaw, maybe, or perhaps it’s just an annoying contradiction: I’m an absolute and total skeptic. I doubt everything, and I hate liars and cheats. I’m always questioning people’s honesty, integrity, fairness, and dedication to their missions. My shenanigans detector is welded on high alert. I’m ever watchful for the double-deals and the crisscross. However, I have few if any firm convictions, of that I’m certain.
It’s a muddy irony. If I adhere to Plato’s belief that everyone’s trying to do what’s right, then what’s to be skeptical about? Well, Plato doesn’t distinguish between doing what’s right for one’s self or group, and doing what’s right for mankind. Taking the last slice of pizza is good for the grabber, but what about the rest of us? I’m sure mass murderers and village pillagers have rationales. Conversely, what few things can be done that are good for all mankind? Can everyone be a winner?
I’m a slob. I’m messy. I don’t pick up after myself. I leave my clothes on the floor. I leave books and papers on my desk until I can’t see the surface anymore. I let plants die. I water them inconsistently. I forget things. I go to work without my lunch. I miss meetings. I leave my coats in restaurants. When I can’t find things in the kitchen I think they were moved intentionally to drive me nuts. I blame my wife when I can’t find socks that match my pants. I don’t buy her anniversary presents. I put off glaring chores, like patching a gutter leak, or spraying for ants, or getting that plastic bottle out of the bushes in front of the house. I play the television too loud and use closed captions on movies. I chew my fingernails. I forget to shave my ears. I leave my shoes in the living room. I leave cups and saucers next to the couch. I buy three of everything because I can never find things when I need them, then I put them all in one drawer.
To be continued…

Touro University has come to Benicia

For Sunday, September 7, 2008

A real, positive opportunity has come to the Benicia Unified School District with the decision by Touro University to begin a Masters in Educational Technology Program held right on our campus, in our classrooms, with our teachers invited to enroll at an amazing 25-percent discount off the going price of a Master’s Degree.
Our teachers can earn their Master of Arts Degree in curriculum, teaching and learning with an emphasis in technology in 18 months (fall-spring-fall, or spring-fall-spring), with six classes, two at a time, for only $4,725 total.
When we factor in the lack of commute costs, the savings of commute time, the opportunity to run home to eat, the ability to collaborate with peers we teach with every day, to develop group projects that can grow and thrive long after the program ends, and the freedom to do some of the course work from home in a hybrid environment – mostly live, partially online – it’s a pretty good deal.
BUSD will greatly benefit from the program because we will be graduating dozens of teachers skilled in the complex task of teaching to the 21st Century student. So far 16 teachers are enrolled to begin classes September 16, and 8 more have committed to begin in early February, with more emailing me every day for information.
These teachers have their roots firmly planted in Benicia. They will take these newly-found skills back to their classrooms to benefit our students, your children.
I had one future teacher, Joe Heffernan, ask me frankly today, “What do honestly think of this program, Steve? Do you think Touro University is going to provide us with a high-caliber learning experience, or is this some fly-by-night operation?”
I replied frankly, “Well, Joe. I think it all depends on the brilliance, creativity, talent, integrity, experience, and fortitude of the instructors they hire. Quality teachers create quality learning.”
“Eh. You’re the primary instructor.”
“That’s what I’m telling you, my friend. I’m putting it all on the table, sharing all my secrets. I’ve been training tech with teachers since PC-DOS 2.0. If I don’t have it straight by now, if you don’t walk out of this program all smiles with a firm grasp on the future of a bright new career, I’ll be in the back room committing hari-kari.”
“I’m holding you to it,” he said.
It is true. I’m the primary instructor for now. More will come. I will be teaching a strand of three methods classes. We will explore how technology is woven through pedagogical theories like constructivism, cognitivism, behaviorism, multiple intelligences, project-, service-, and problem-based learning. We’ll develop lesson plans that adhere not only to the California Content Standards, but also the California Technology Standards and International Technology (ISTE) Standards for teachers, students, administrators, and technology curriculum directors. We won’t just develop lessons as an exercise. Candidates must take these lessons into their classrooms and implement them. That’s required.
This isn’t a theoretical approach. It’s a practical, hands-on, field-based “I did it in real life” curriculum.
I am also assisting in the development of three research courses. We will read, analyze, and discuss educational research until we know what everybody else knows. We’ll develop our own proposals for new research, and we’ll each complete a masters project and a program portfolio.
Please don’t let me sound like I’m building from scratch. Touro is heavily resourced and generously supportive. Whatever I need, they provide. Touro has a long history of offering high-caliber advanced degrees in health care and education. I have a stack of syllabi from previous Touro teachers tall enough that I can stand on them and rescue cats from tall trees. I am building on the shoulders of giants.
I also work with a team of excellent educators and administrators. Dr. Pamela Redmond, my boss, the Program Director who oversees the four masters programs going on in Benicia, Vallejo, Fairfield, and Vacaville, with Martinez next on the list, does and knows so much that I can’t eat while she’s talking or food falls out of my mouth. In her spare time, she teaches educational technology at SFSU. She has far-reaching aspirations. She wants to spearhead an Ed.D. Program at Touro. I hope to be at the tip of that spear.
Dr. Jim O’Connor, Associate Dean and Professor at the College of Education, is a man of vast experience and casual professionalism. I liked him the minute I met him. He put me immediately at ease. I felt like I could discuss with him the finer points of pedagogy or the best lures for native trout. He was open, humorous, trusting, and knew how to delegate authority. Those are the traits one wants in a school administrator.
In 1790 Judah and Isaac Touro funded the first free library in the North American Continent. Touro College was chartered in New York in 1970 in their name and honor by Dr. Bernard Lander. I’m onboard with the mission:
“The mission of Touro University-California is to provide quality educational programs in the fields of health care and education in concert with the Judaic commitment to social justice, intellectual pursuit, and service to humanity.”

A wary, fairytale, of sorts

For Sunday, September 7, 2008

Bottleneck Bill. Bottleneck Bill. Let me tell you the story of Bottleneck Bill. Bottleneck Bill took a job one day at a fictional company far, far away. The company’s name was Widgets and Floss, and Bottleneck Bill was to be their boss.
He was assigned to the department of Gadgets at Large, with the delegated authority to be in charge. His first rule of order was to change all procedures with new ways of doing every single feature. He had his ideas and some life-long habits that he picked up way back when he used to raise rabbits. The rabbits never argued, and most had survived, so Bottleneck Bill kept his approach alive.
That approach was to do whatever he decided with the expectation that everyone abided. To learn how the Gadget Department was working for the last 50 years seemed to him to be shirking. “Time’s better spent,” said Bottleneck Bill, “by moving ahead the way I will. And don’t give me trouble. I don’t want your advice, because I’m in charge, I told you that twice.”
“Blue boxes will be red, now, and stacked in the back. Numbers will be letters, and white will be black. We’ll no longer write using check marks,” he said. “We’ll start using X’s as of yesterday instead. And boxes will be green now because I changed my mind about red.”
The people in the Gadget Department complied, though many of them grumbled and some of them cried. They went home befuddled, congested, and tired, but dared not complain, not wanting to be fired. The sparkle and spunk and chatter and joy that once went with the job was replaced with annoy. People came to work and did what they must, but the desire to do more had dissolved with the dust.
Gadget sales slid to the nadir of the chart. Performance was off. Things all fell apart. Bottleneck Bill never checked on the quotas, so when production went down, he never noticed. Bottleneck Bill pushed on with his plans, which he made up alone with his own little hands.
One day came to pass when Bottleneck Bill broke down on the highway. His car lost a wheel. He was driving home late after deleting the work done by an employee who was a mere clerk. The clerk had typed sales up in rows just the way it’s always been done since Roosevelt’s day. Bottleneck Bill, he changed it to columns, and ran out of paper and then put a call in. “Come in early tomorrow, and do this again. And this time use Roman Numerals and Braille. The end.”
So parked on the edge of a highway so dark, Bill found his cell phone had nary a spark. He sat there and sat there and sat there and raved, then saw bright lights coming and jumped up and waved. A wizened old man pulled off to the side, unlocked his doors, and gave Bill a ride.
While driving along Bill told him the story of how hard he was working, but couldn’t find glory. The old man, he nodded, because he’d heard it before. He was once general manager of a fishing bait store. He’d long since retired and was living on pension, free of the stress and the strain and the tension.
He explained to Bill the nature of power. He put it quite simply because of the hour. “There are two kinds of power at work here, my friend. And they’re both complimentary, not at opposite ends. One is the power bestowed by position, delegated authority we called it while fishing. The other is knowledge power, you see, that comes from experience, that doesn’t come free.
“Delegated power is transient, it comes and it goes, one day you have it, and that day it glows. But there’s often a lingering fear in one’s mind that it could suddenly vanish and leave one behind.
“Knowledge power is different. You have it for life. It brings confidence, comfort, calmness, no strife. Knowledge power is delegated power’s best friend. It’s there to instruct, to suggest, and to mend. Great leaders and kings and corporate execs surround themselves with experts to give them the specs. A cabinet of wise men can give good advice, making delegates with power look very nice. Don’t push them away. They are not a threat. They know you’re the boss. Be a sponge and don’t fret.
“And this is quite certain, you have a great gift, to delegate authority to those you work with. Empower your workers, involve them in plans, great weights are high lifted when you use many hands. Include, don’t exclude. Take criticism gladly. If you block all that out, it could turn out badly. So, listen, my friend, and take my advice. I’ll letting you out now, so I can’t tell you twice.”
No Bottleneck Bill went to work the next day and opened his doors and gave people say. He passed out permissions and passwords and keys, and trusted his workers to do their jobs as they please. He made them all equals in the success of the business, and turned things around, what kind of fairy tale is this?

Impress at the Empress

For Sunday, August 31, 2008


It felt good to be part of something big. I could have sat home, with the Mrs., comfortably on our couch, and watched on my big screen television Barack Obama accept the Democratic Party’s nomination to be their candidate for President of the United States. Instead, we accepted the invitation from the Empress Theatre in Vallejo to see it live with several hundred other hopeful Americans eager for change.
It felt good to be in a cheering crowd, shoulder to shoulder in firm agreement with white, black, Asian, Hispanic, young, old, and middle-aged Americans, veterans, teachers, nurses, clerks, and the desperate unemployed, all in love with our country, all hopeful for a fairer future for average-income Americans, all frustrated as an extended family, fed up with eight years of theft of our nation’s wealth, eight years of neglect of our nation’s needy, eight years of squandered potential.
It felt good to turn and hug my neighbors. It felt good to turn around and see Jerry Hayes and Bob and Carol Berman and Rich Friedman in the audience. We as hundreds applauded in unison. We roared in unison. We laughed in unison. We rose to our feet in unison and stomped our feet as powerful points were made by profound speakers, culminating with Barack bringing down the house. He reminded us concisely that when McCain’s Carl-Rovians attack Barack’s race, his name, his supposed celebrity, they are forgetting that the campaign is not about Obama; it’s about us. Americans.
It felt good to turn around and see a sea of people sick and tired of eight stolen years of fear, terror, arrogance, and cronyism. It felt good to see 80,000 others at the Mile-High Stadium in Denver, along with millions of republicans, democrats, and independents all over America in agreement finally that our country was not created to become a feeding trough for a handful of mega-wealthy, money-hungry families and corporations with the power to write their own laws and lobby their own favors. It felt good to see that a whole lot of people are angry enough to finally do something about it.
We may not have taken to the streets like the children of the ‘60s who protested the war in Viet Nam, but we are taking our disgust to the voting booths to fight for change, to force change, and to carefully monitor the enactment of change.
It felt good to believe in our souls that we were seeing the end of a dark age, a fear of science, a disregard for the destitute, a casting aside of our wounded veterans, an indifference to a crumbling infrastructure, and an end to self-serving attitudes like that of Dick Cheney, who so aptly showed his colors earlier this year when asked why he refused to change his deadly, destructive course in the Middle East when the vast majority of Americans opposed it; he replied with a monosyllabic, smug response of “So?” He elucidated by asking why should he change policy to meet the whims of changing public opinions?
Dick doesn’t get it. Elected officials are there to do the will of the people. If the vast majority say, “End the war,” it’s his civic duty to obey. That’s why they call politicians public servants. Cheney and gang obviously don’t see it that way. He was inserted there to do the will of those who need to leave trillions of dollars in their wills without any inheritance tax to recycle some of that ungodly wealth back into the system.
Yes, we’re going to run them out. I don’t think they’ll really mind it that much. They’ve already pilfered just about everything of value our nation has. Our country’s like a Quickie Mart after a rampant looting spree. There are a few stale doughnuts left in the corner, and couple cans of dented beets. The Bushwackers would just as soon get out now and wallow in their ill-gotten gains while someone else cleans up their mess.
I think back eight years ago when I wrote a column called Bushwacked. I said basically, “Oh, no. We’re screwed. Bush is going to muck everything up.” That column triggered several angry letters to the editor, one by someone I considered a close friend. He and a few others called me a fool and a rabble-rouser for even suggesting that our new Diebold-voting-machine-produced president would be anything less that the greatest leader in history.
Tonight, amidst the large crowd who gathered at the beautifully restored Empress Theater, 330 Virginia Street, where we can go to see amazing movies, live music, life performances, touring artists, and have cocktails with our popcorn, I felt duly vindicated. The bushwhack was real. It’s about to end. I feel grand. I wish I had been wrong. I wish I were a fool and a rabble-rouser.

Revolving doors

For Sunday, August 24, 2008


The first week of school has come and gone. It wasn’t so bad. Funny how during the summer I can wake up at 5:30 a.m. and jump out of bed like a swarm of jiggled bees, rush down the stairs to perk my Peets and pull in the newspapers off the front porch, and while the Cuisinart is dripping my honey brew, I can be in the garage yanking on my work shirt and preparing for a day in the yard, or on deck duty.
Now the alarm blares at 6 a.m. and I barely have the strength to clamber from my slumber and slap the snoozer. Now I stand in the kitchen rubbing my bare belly, bleary eyed, trying to remember what comes first, grinding the beans or filling the carafe with water.
It will prove to be an interesting year for me as I’m experiencing four significant job changes. On the dark side, I’ve been relieved of all my technology curriculum support duties around the campus “because it’s a bad model” I’m told, so I’m back teaching English full time. We have no technology curriculum support at our campus currently.
I’ve been relieved of teaching digital photography and digital filmmaking after building up the course for five years “because I’m not qualified” I’m told by No Child Left Behind auditors. It seems the course is an art course and I’ve got only an English credential and a masters in educational multimedia technology.
Odd thing that NCLB. If I were a world-class photographer in my spare time with published books and a couple of Pulitzer prizes, and maybe an Emmy, I still would not be qualified to teach photography and film making because I have an English credential only. Apparently local administrators have zero flexibility to allow teachers to instruct electives outside their credential.
It plays hardball with our electives. It implies teachers are one dimensional and can only be competent in one field. They call it educational reform, a term I’ve been hearing for the last 25 years.
Next thing you know they’ll have us all teaching exactly the same lessons on the same days, like robots, assuming we cannot even construct the content of our own areas of expertise.
On the bright side, Touro University has come to town. They have hired me to bring a Masters in Educational Technology Program to Benicia, open to all Benicia teachers with a 25-percent discount in tuition, and the courses will be taught right on campus one night a week, so there’s no extra commute. I will facilitate the program and teach the courses. So far we have a healthy enrollment of about 16 teachers.
I’m extremely excited about this program. It gives me an outlet for sharing my 25 years of tech-curriculum expertise with educators. As they say, when one door closes, another door opens.
I’ve also been asked by Chapman University to teach an additional fall tech-curriculum course in addition to the spring course I’ve taught for five years. I just returned from an all-day workshop where we practiced tying core lesson plans to state content and state technology standards. Sonoma State’s office of Extended Education has also invited me back next summer to teach digital photography and digital film making in their summer Excel program. Go figure.
I took my sophomore English students to the computer lab for the first time today. Our plan was to each create a personality profile with PowerPoint so we could all get to know each other – favorite books, movies, songs, hobbies, and so on.
We’re off to a rocky start. The first step was for each student to create three folders in their private drives and name them sophomore, junior, and senior. Then they were to go inside their sophomore folder and make sub-folders for each of their six classes. This way students will have an organized approach to file management for their next three years. Then we were to open PowerPoint and begin our personality profile.
We didn’t get that far. It took the entire hour just to make three folders and six sub-folders. Sorry to say more than half of my sophomores did not know how to create folders or move files. I demonstrated on the big screen, but it didn’t translate. I had to work one-on-one around the room and the bell rang before we ever opened PowerPoint.
We have no mandatory introduction to computer courses in our program. I teach 27 freshmen who volunteered for computer training.
Another change on campus: we are about to embark on an entire campus-wide overhaul of how we structure our lessons more closely to state content standards. Sadly, state technology standards (Standard 16) and CTAP-approved ISTE Standards (newly revised this year) are not included in this 2008 overhaul. Why not ask why?
My candle: I intend to bring all my students up to speed in 21st Century technology-in-education skills. Perhaps I can’t support the whole community anymore, but my students – freshmen, sophomores and masters candidates alike – will push on.

School starts tomorrow, ha, ha!

For Sunday, August 17, 2008


Well, well, well, boys and girls. You went and did it, didn’t you? You went and used up the whole summer vacation. You couldn’t save just a little bit to use now. No. You had to burn right through it, every day. Now it’s payback time. You have to go back to school, back to the classrooms, back to the homework and the tests and quizzes, and all that hard thinking.
Classes start in less than 24 hours. Think about that. Today is the last day of summer vacation. What do we do? Where can we hide? Do you have the jitters? Are you anxious, excited, frightened, dreadful, sad to see summer end? Are you restless? Is that why you’re reading the newspaper?
Take heart. You know deep down that going to school is a good thing, Knowing this gives us the courage to face the first day, instead of diving under our beds.
We know that filling our heads with language and life skills will make us better, happier, healthier people. Knowledge is a no-brainer. It is what drives people to continue to go to school all their lives, even old people. Learning is earning.
Wouldn’t it be great to just lounge about your house, travel at random, sleep in, sleep out, goof on your eyebrows? Well, boys and girls, we have words for that. We call it “early retirement.”
You know how you earn early retirement? You get smart. Getting rich is good, but you still need smarts. You need to evaluate always, at every stage of life. Weigh and adjust. Analyze the world. Synthesize your place in it. Search for society’s greatest needs, and fill them. That what’s makes millionaires and good friends. That’s what makes the world go around.
You think you have it hard. Consider poor, old Mr. Gibbs. You are on your first dozen first days of school. Ha. You’re babies, beginners, amateurs. I just did the math in my head. This will be my 43rd first day of school since I passed kindergarten. I still get the heebie-jeebies.
Here’s what I can tell you from experience. The heebies wear off about 8:15 a.m. and the jeebies are gone by the end of lunch. Once you see all your friends, meet your teachers, hear what’s cooking in the classroom, you’ll fall right back into the pattern. Come Tuesday you’ll be relaxed. By Wednesday you’ll be making year-long plans. Thursday you’ll be smarter than you are today. Friday you’ll realize it still feels good knowing that the next day is Saturday.
Let’s be serious for a moment, my young co-learners. Look around you. You’re living in a world where competition for the good life comes from around the globe. We’ve woven our planet together in glass fiber and binary strings. Any work that can be sent across the Internet can be done by anyone on the Internet.
Imagine applying for an opening at the local hospital as an x-ray technician and finding that 387,000 other people have applied for the same job from 43 countries, offering to do it remotely, for less.
“Bit torrent the x-rays to me at my igloo on the outskirts of Dead Horse, Alaska, Dr. Jenson, and I’ll email you my findings in ten minutes. And I’ll do it for less, because my igloo is built with green technology, and I eat a lot of frozen food. I’m well insulated.”
Mrs. Gibbs has a favorite Youtube video she intends to show her classes. It’s called Shift Happens. Did you know that schools in China have more honor students than we have students. China will soon be the number one English speaking country in the world. Last year, more Chinese students took the English AP Exam than American students.
According to the Dept of Labor, today’s learner may change jobs up to 14 times by age 38. According to former Secretary of Education Richard Riley the top ten in-demand jobs in 2010 did not exist in 2004. This means you must prepare yourselves now for 14 jobs that don’t exist. Be adamant about flexibility.
Last year a retired teacher from India became the first millionaire to earn her fortune selling virtual real-estate in Second Life. Up ahead, third-generation fiber optics will carry 10 trillion bits per second down one strand. That's like downloading 1,900 CDs a second.
What I’m saying is that school is fun, serious business. Learn to balance. Hang with friends. Weave yourself into the social fabric. Do your homework. Learn your lessons. Don’t think about grades. That’s like thinking about tomatoes without watering them. Grades are your shadow. You lead, they follow. Do not study for tests. Do not study for quizzes. Study forever. Actively put all the information you can fit into your long-term memory. You’re not learning vocabulary words for the sake of some silly English test you took back in high school 25 years ago with Mr. Gibbs. You’re learning so you can give an eloquent speech when you run for president.

Firm against the wind like grass
Gino is Back in Town


For Sunday, August 10, 2008


Guess who’s back in town? Guess whose relationship cracked like the Liberty Bell? Guess whose relationship crumbled like my mother’s Thanksgiving turkey? Guess whose relationship dried up like a top limb lime? Guess whose relationship fell apart like pressure-cooked pork? Guess whose relationship died like alfalfa sprouts on the moon? Gino is back in town.
My old college buddy, Gino, who moved in with us back in 2004 after he turned 50 and ran screaming from Philadelphia and his family to start anew, is back in Benicia after his nearly-two-year relationship with a San Francisco girl.
“Everything was fine, until I moved in,” he explained. “It was just too much pressure.”
Like radioactive isotopes that get together, they came apart.
I can imagine that just logistically for Gino, living in the city, even alone, considering his line of work, had to be exhausting. He is a carpenter-electrician-plumber-mason-designer who does finish work, remodels, additions. He drives a big open F-250 truck full of expensive tools everywhere he goes. In the city, he had no guaranteed parking. He had to move his many tools from his truck to the garage, sometimes a block away, in several trips, each trip leaving behind whatever he couldn’t carry, unguarded.
Back in Philadelphia his truck was robbed on several occasions, once while at Home Depot, so he’s perpetually anxious about his tools while traveling. Whenever we have parked anywhere, we have had to move all his gear from the bed of his truck to his cab, then put it back again after we bought our 2x4 or saw blade or Dennys breakfast.
I can imagine Gino gingerly trotting up a San Francisco hill at sundown carrying a tile saw, knowing his compressor and his saws-all are alone and defenseless back at the truck, parked around the corner. I can imagine the same scenario in reverse each morning, and gauge the time it would take. I empathize with his angst.
This situation no doubt perhaps most assuredly made Gino cranky at times. Whenever the world vibrates beyond the alpha range, Gino senses it in his bones and grows testy. Usually, he can control his environment and maintain a steady baroque. The hubbub of San Francisco proved too much, however, for this Philadelphia boy.
She, on the other hand, had heavy family complications, extremely heavy, in the millions. All this and that and the other thing, and here he is at our doorstep once again looking for his old bedroom back. Of course, it was as he left it, waiting for Godot.
The rest of the story is the meat of his own personal monkey’s paw inside the coconut of love and not mine to crack open and distribute. If you want to know more, you’ll have to ask him yourselves. If you don’t know him, just look each Thursday at the Farmer’s Market for a balding Italian guy buying tomatoes and listening to jazz, looking for that certain someone.
We like having him home. He’s like our grown son that we had when we were two. He carries his share of the household upkeep like a senior member. He built and maintains our vegetable garden. It looks like Eden. Fat, flat cucumber leaves, zucchini vines, zinnias and marigolds sprout up from an abandoned corner of our yard like one of Mother Earth’s reified dreams.
He helped me rescue my deck and build a shade roof, for which I have a permit, thank you very much. Of course I have a permit. Who, what homeowner would build without a permit? That would be silly and wrong. Especially considering how easy it is to acquire all the permits one needs, including electrical, and how kind and friendly, and forgiving, the people are down at the city office.
So Gino’s back. Our dinner volume will rise to normal. We’ll have more seafood in our diet. The dishes will always, every minute of the day, down to the spoon I just used to stir my coffee, be clean, dried, and put away. Greg Brown music will once again fill the air. We will once again loudly and continuously criticize every movie flaw we see. We’ll go to the Chris Club more often. We’ve got a new kick we’re experimenting with – backyard deep-fry. We bought a monster pot and buy our vegetable oil by the gallon.
Gino is for hire, by the way, for home construction projects. You’ll have to negotiate individually for his extended services. Alan Lemone, Mr. Best Cabinets in Town Guy, can hook you up. Or you know where to find me. Google.
Want to turn your living room into your kitchen, your kitchen into your bedroom, your garage into a nightclub with a mahogany bar and recessed lighting? He’s your guy.
We’re sorry for his sad romance. It’s not a funny situation. He’s heartbroken and depressed. I ache for my friend. But he’s also resilient. He’s hard like water.
“It’s life. It’s what happens,” he says. “Try again.”

Can you keep a secret?

For Sunday, August 3, 2008



My wife is turning 60 this October and I’m planning a big surprise party for her. Our children will lure her out of the house for the day, while I stay at home and welcome all the guests. We will all be hiding down in the garage, so we must make sure she doesn’t come in that way. The children will guide her up to the front door. Once she’s inside, we’ll come streaming up the steps one at a time, shouting “Surprise!”
Shhhh. Don’t mention it.
Actually, my daughter, Kristi, wanted to throw the surprise party. I was against it. I figured if someone is turning over a new decade, and there is no mention of a birthday celebration, they’re going to be suspicious. They’ll know right away someone is planning a surprise party.
I figured I’d let Susan in on the secret, in case she had some preferences we hadn’t considered. Maybe she’d want a certain dish cooked; maybe she’d want me to fire up the barbecue; perhaps she’d like to help plan the guest list; possibly she’d prefer to have the party downstairs in the family room instead of upstairs in the living room.
So, I said, “Honey, your big birthday is coming up. It deserved a huge party. What are your thoughts? What do want to have happen on that day?”
She said, “I want to go to Mexico on a seven-day cruise.” There was no hesitation in her voice. No hem. No Haw. No either or.
“Whoa. Oh. OK, eh, sure. If that’s what you want, baby, that’s what we’ll do. Royal Caribbean, here we come again.” Maybe the surprise party wasn’t such a bad idea after all.
Honestly, I’m happy to take her back to Mexico. There’s nothing more fun than being pampered aboard a pleasure cruiser, and she deserves the pampering.
“This trip, I don’t want to even get off the boat at the ports of call,” she said. “Why trudge all over town in the heat and pay for food and listen to pitches to buy time shares when we can lounge on the sundeck with no crowds and eat for free?”
“I’m with you, baby. I don’t want to march through Mazatlan again. Maybe we’ll leave the ship in Cabo, though, eh? It’s a small, fun town. What do you think?”
“OK. We’ll do Cabo. But beyond that it’s…” She snaps her fingers in gesture “…oh, waiter! Over here please. Would you refresh my umbrella drink, por favor?”
I guess that’s why I dig the chick so much. She’s never lost her spirit for revelry.
Ten years ago we got off light. All she wanted to do was walk across the Golden Gate Bridge. That was her long-term wish. Of course, she didn’t realize that she would also have to walk back across the bridge to get to the car. That realization came as we reached the parking lot.
She deserves more than just a party and a Mexican holiday. I need to plan a few other surprises as well, things I don’t even know about yet.
This woman has put up with me for over 20 years. I’ve dragged her all over the country, sleeping on hard ground down rocky roads. Took her to rural PA for our wedding. We got married by a Free Methodist because no one else would marry us, her being a divorcee, and had our reception in the Grange Hall, that we rented for $35. The main course was venison. Guests came in jeans and flannel and drank whiskey out of the trunks of their cars. It was like the wedding in the movie Deer Hunter. On our wedding night, we slept on my niece Wendy’s single bed, a thin, sagging mattress on a flat spring frame, with my legs hanging off the end up to my calves. My four nieces, sister and brother-in-law were sleeping in the other bedrooms on the far sides of the thin plaster walls, trying their best not to listen. Creak. Creak.
On her 40th birthday I planned a total fiasco. I rented the Burlington Hotel in Port Costa, sight unseen. I didn’t know it had vines growing in through the windows, chickens in the lobby, springs and spines protruding from the furniture, frayed carpets, a chandelier hanging only from its light cord, a speed-limit sign stuffed under the couch, and the funky aroma of decaying fabric. To this eccentric haven I invited many of her life-long friends, accomplished folks from all walks of life. “Meet my husband,” she said.
The true beauty of this plan, and this published confession, is that now I can plot a surprise party and she’ll never suspect it. She’ll think her birthday plans are in the bag. So, maybe she’ll get a surprise party, and maybe she won’t. One never knows, does one?

Fluff, the magic dragon

For Sunday, July 27, 2008


I’m sitting in a Doubletree Hotel room in Rohnert Park. As I look out the window, I see the greens of the golf course across the road. The setting sun is casting warm shadows of the hotel across the parking lot. As I look over my left shoulder, I see my lovely wife lounging on one of the queen beds. She is laughing, munching carrot sticks, and watching her other favorite man, Keith Olbermann, make news funny while skewering Faux News and Bill-o “The Clown” O’Reilly. Obama just spoke in Germany. Right-wing pundits are trying to tailspin it.
On the desk to my left are the following books: Handbook on Research and Evaluation, Experimental Designs for Research, Issues in Teacher Education, and Integrating Educational Technology into Teaching.

I’m here on an invitation from Sonoma State University, which is footing the bill for this beautiful room. I am teaching a week-long course called Mastering Multimedia. It’s a working vacation. While I go into the classroom each day, Susan stays in bed reading, watching CNBC, strolling down to the spa, and walking the treadmill.

In the evenings we go out to dinner, a new restaurant each night. On Tuesday we also visited the local movie theater and saw The Dark Knight. I’ll predict now that Heath will win a post-humus Oscar.

I’m also writing this column. It’s 5:20 p.m. Thursday and I just got back from the campus. Susan is patiently waiting for me to finish so we can go to dinner again. Tonight -- Outback Steakhouse.
“What are you going to write about?” she asks me.

“I don’t know yet. Not much happening right now.”

“Are you kidding?” she says. “Write about our camping trip last weekend at the Bear River Resort up by Kirkwood. That was fun. You spent 13 hours fishing with Chad on his boat. You were a good grandpa. We got that great cabin.”

“Hm, yeah, I could,” says I, “but nothing special took place. We didn’t meet any oddballs or have any unexpected encounters. What’s my hook?”

“I know. Write about that strange young man we saw dancing at the Chief Crazy Horse Saloon in Nevada City. He was so odd. You said you were going to dedicate a whole column to him one day.”

“Yes. I did. You’re right. I also said I didn’t know if I was capable of describing him in words. He was a visual experience, and so unusual. The way he danced with so many people, but seemed so alone. I still can’t figure out if he was a crazy outcast or the life of the party. I think about him a lot, but writing about him still scares me. I prefer to postpone that topic for now.”

“Well, why don’t you write about the process you went through getting a building permit for your deck. That was definitely an unexpected encounter.”

“Naw. I’d rather not mention that little episode. It’s too embarrassing.”

“So, write about HR 1955 and the new laws on the books to deal with ‘homegrown terrorism’ that has you so upset your veins are popping.”

“That’s a biggie, baby. I do need to write about that. It’s the latest assault on our civil liberties, especially the part about the government building detention centers in every state to deal with growing domestic insurgency. However, I need to do a lot more research on it first. I don’t want to sit on the Internet all evening. Also, it’s depressing. That theory we heard on the radio about Bush declaring Martial Law and refusing to leave office. President for life! That creeps me out. I’m here to relax and have fun.”

“If you want to write about having fun, why not tell people about Tyler Day. People would enjoy a good story about you and me taking our six-year-old grandson to San Francisco. Tell them how much he enjoyed the ferry ride, and all the oysters he ate at the Ferry Farmer’s Market, and his amazement at the IMAX Theater. You were so proud to be showing him all these great things and he was so excited.”

“Good point. That was fun. I could do that. It just doesn’t have a peak. We went. We did. We returned. It was a personal pleasure. Where’s the hook?”

“Well, honey,” says she, rising from the bed and coming over to my side. She runs her fingers through my hair and kisses me on top of my head. “You need to write about something. I’m getting hungry, and the wine has fully chilled. Don’t you want to go outside and play? It’s warm tonight. We have to go home tomorrow.”

“Honey,” says I. “You can’t rush the writing process. It takes time and intense concentration. You’ll just have to wait. I don’t want to write a fluff piece.”

Tunnel at the end of the light
Sunday, July 20, 2008


You know what is hard? Making money with money. Cheese and rice on Friday, as my non-swearing grandmother used to say. Where and how can one plant a savings where it will grow? The stock market? Yikes! Real estate? Arrg.
In the last eight years, both of those options took turns collapsing and siphoning off all the equity we poured into them. What’s left? The mattress? Idle money shrinks with inflation and the dying US dollar.
I don’t have much spare money to plant, so I can’t be investing in art. We must be discerning.
Susan and I recently visited a financial planner. We spent two hours hemming, hawing and strategizing. We came out with a ragged plan, but a plan nonetheless.
Here are the three key options considered: (1) pay off high-interest loans, (2) avoid taxes by deferring salaries, (3) budget expenses by dropping our standard of living. Any money left over goes into a money market or other low-return financial service that forever scrambles to catch up to inflation.
Here are the three key obstacles we discovered: (1) our high-interest loans are not credit cards, but mortgages for hundreds of thousands of dollars that are not easy to pay off and nearly impossible to sell off, (2) avoiding taxes by deferring salaries involves investing in the volatile stock market in 403 and 401 plans, (3) our standard of living already has us growing our own vegetables, watching movies at home, and abandoning our roles as community fashion icons. Any money left over goes to prop up a leg on our kitchen table that wobbles.
With humility I admit many others are worse off. Many have lost their homes to foreclosure, their jobs to outsourcing, their entire standard of living to support the war and the plethora of corporate and upper-class tax breaks.
If misery truly loves company, then we should all be happy and in love because these financial woes are nationwide and involve just about every low- and middle-class person. I recently read an AARP article called “Oops! I retired too soon.” It tells of the hardships of retirees and how many are being forced back into the job market, if only to cover their health needs, which deteriorate more quickly because of the renewed work load on their weary bones.
At least we aren’t retired, lucky us. Those poor, poor people . At least we get to work every day, and accept side jobs, and push out our projected retirement dates into our late 60s. At least we have that luxury to comfort us.
At least we don’t have our youth. Woe to the young people just starting out, looking for a job that offers a living wage, benefits, and security. Those poor, poor people. Many are being funneled toward one of the only job opportunities left for today’s youth that offers perks and a pension plan – military service.
One pathetic piece of advice we got was to sell our losing stocks and take the $3,000 annual maximum tax write off. That should only take us a decade or so to clear up, barring any more of my crazy investment schemes like buying phone company stock in Qwest Communications and alternative energy shares.
The alternative energy play has me seriously perplexed. We’re into hydrogen, solar, bio-fuel, coal-to-liquid, even plug-in hybrid, and we bought in long ago, and still the stocks languish like high-hanging fruit. We’ve mitigated our risk with clean-energy RTFs and we’re still losing ground. How can these stocks not go up? I guess we will mass produce electric alternatives as soon as electricity cost as much as gas.
So how can money make money? The system obviously works. I guess we’re just not smart enough to be rich. We chose rewarding, secure careers as teachers, but that income ceiling is too low to ever work ourselves into wealth through labor. We could have been captains of industry or chosen high-paying fields in specialized medicine, but that often takes a century of breeding, grooming, networking, or being born as a mutant genius.
This is America. We are limited only by our dreams, our aspirations and government regulations. With one down and two to go, we should be able to realize our gray lives in some sort of comfort that allows us to sleep at night.
I suspect hanky-panky is the ultimate culprit.
Best-case scenario: we hit the lotto and pay all our debts. That is the desperate dream. Then where do we store the remaining cash? The stock market? Yikes! Real estate? Arrg. Bonds? Zzzz. Venture capitalism? There’s a black hole that sucks up even millionaires and billionaires.
Having money is like having water on a hot day. It’s vital to life, but prone to rapid evaporation when exposed. If you swim in it, you can’t drink it, and if you drink it, it turns to blood, sweat, and tears.

A foothill holiday
Sunday, July 13, 2008




Susan and I just returned from a five-day foothill vacation full of good times and great food. We drove to one of our most favorite destinations in California – Nevada City, the most exciting, vibrant, lively, well-organized little village in the Sierras. As usual we took a room at the expansive Northern Queen Inn.
Downtown Nevada City is small. It’s only a few blocks long, easy to walk, and tourist friendly. Nearly every store is either a restaurant, bar, nightclub, boutique, antique shop, bookstore, or novelty shop. Our walks through town resembled a sewing machine needle – into a store, out, down, into the next store, out, down, into the next store, and so on.
Nevada City has been a vacation destination of ours since the 1980s. We’ve either taken a room at the Northern Queen, or pitched a tent six miles north of town at the Yuba River Recreation Area.
Even when camping, we would generally drive into town for dinner. The food is that good. I thought we had visited all of the 19 restaurants in town, but this trip, on our first night, July 3rd, we were sitting at Cooper’s Ale Works (Leon Russell will be there on 14th) and met George and Christine Foster. George is the city treasurer; Christine was vice-mayor and is now a realtor. We asked their opinion of the best restaurant. They said, “The New Moon.” I confessed that I’d never heard of it. They pointed up the street. “It’s two blocks from here.”
“Up there?” I asked, pointing beyond the intersection where we usually turn when walking. He nodded. “Ha. I’ve never been up there. I thought it was residential.”
“Well,” George smiled. “It’s called Commercial Street, Steve. There are several restaurants up there.”
“Duh.” It was a 20-year blind spot. We walked up there and found three restaurants, Ike’s Corner Café, Sopa Thai, and the New Moon, where I ate the best rib-eye steak in my life.
Early on the 4th we carried folding chairs to Broad Street for the big parade. The town was packed. The 20-piece Nevada County Concert Band set up across from us and opened with ABBA. The parade ran for several hours with firemen, marching bands, and business floats from Nevada City, Grass Valley, and Washington. George and Christine were 7th in the parade, riding by in a horse-drawn white carriage. They waved at us in the crowd and asked how we enjoyed our meal. I rubbed my belly and smiled in response.
That night we went dancing with the 20-somethings at the Chief Crazy Horse Inn and lasted until 1 a.m. One day I may dedicate a whole column to an unusual young man we met there that evening. He danced alone and with everyone, cycling through a series of gestures, pantomimes, and facial contortions. Susan called him a “Jim Carrey.” I confessed a fear that I would not be able to describe him clearly, that his personality and quirky behavior exceeded my talents. I’ll say no more.
On July 5th, our 23rd anniversary, our kids and grandkids drove up from Sacramento and we spent 8 hours swimming and sunning on the Yuba River. That was the highlight of the trip. The Yuba hosts at least 30 miles of great swimming holes, the remnants of gold miners’ dredging efforts. We chose a secret spot frequented by locals that took me 10 years to discover. It’s perfect for children with many shallows and climbing rocks.
They spent the night with us. Some things to know about the marvelous Northern Queen Inn. They have 86 rooms, eight cabins, eight chalets, and own 33 acres. They run a narrow-gauge train on a 90-minute ride that visits historic mining country and a Chinese cemetery called Village in the Clouds. They have a special weekly run where the train gets robbed by costumed outlaws who kidnap everyone and take them to dinner in the forest. In the winter they have a Santa run.
We left on Sunday and drove Highway 49 south for many miles. We had no plans except to explore and find a room at sundown. We discovered Sierra Knolls Winery, isolated on a mountain top, powered by solar panels. We drove through Plymouth, Drytown, and Amador City. At sunset we arrived in Sutter Creek, the Jewel of the Mother Lode. We took a room at a quaint Bed and Breakfast owned by an 87-year-old woman and Iris, her deaf, black cat. Our bed hung from the ceiling on chains.
We ate late-night apple cobblers at the Ice Cream Emporium. We were the only customers. The animated proprietor, Stevens Price, wore a rumpled, red and white Seuss top hat and a tie. While we ate, he put a roll of “Ain’t She Sweet” into his player piano and sang us a song, dancing about with his broom. I joined in. Susan sat flushed and happy while we pointed to her during the motif. “Ain’t she nice.”