I’d decided a couple of months back that the weekend after my Mom and Dad’s posthumous celebration on September 22nd PLC and I should have some other activities to keep our spirits up.

 

Jimmy Cliff

So for the next weekend, on Saturday the 29th, I’d gotten tickets to go see Jimmy Cliff, one of reggae’s great stars (“The Harder They Come”, “Many Rivers To Cross” and others) and a current indie-pop group of guys from Portland and lately the Southwest called The Shins at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View,California about 60 miles south of San Francisco and about 35 east of Santa Cruz.We especially like some of The Shins’s songs and the lead singer, James Mercer’s,voice. We'd seen a couple of Neil Young's Bridge School Concerts there in years past so I at least felt vaguely familiar with the venue.

 

For the weekend after that I’d gotten tickets for us to see journalist and former Salon and current UK Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald give a talk October  5th, Friday night, about the legal, political and cultural discrimination American Muslims are going through in the U.S.during the so-called War on Terror. Greenwald was speaking at the Santa Clara Convention Center- a large, modern, rather elegant complex next to a large Hyatt hotel. Greenwald is probably the journalist or writer about the political and cultural reality in the United States besides Truthdig's Christopher HedgesI depend on as my "go-to" guys about the moral reality of my country's activities and policies in this world.

 

This all seemed likea good combination of the celebratory and the connected-in that would be good experiencesfor us with people we cared about.

 

The first weekend wegot to the Shoreline at a leisurely pace, for us, and walked around beforegetting some not particularly great and nearly unflavored supposed Thai food atone of the food vendors before the main shows kicked in. I hadn't realized tillI looked online a day before the show that it was not a simple matter of JimmyCliff and The Shins but was a multi-band and two-stage event called"Harmony By the Bay". The poster actually claimed there were threestages but I guess one of them was hidden- to my eyes anyway.

One of the stages wecould actually verify the existence of was out nearer to the parking lots andthe main stage was in the main amphitheater- the only place we'd seen showsthere before.

 

We listened to an opening reggae band performing on the parking lot stage for awhile and then after we'd finished sitting on a curb eating our nourishment headed into the main amphitheater to see another band called Kimbra.

Unfortunately PLC andI both sat there while our entire skeletons rattled from the bass tones coming through the amps for several minutes before PLC said "I can't listen to this." I didn't argue because it WAS unlistenable and it was time, anyway,for Jimmy Cliff to appear at the "parking lot" stage so off we trekked a few hundred yards out of the amphitheater and into the parking lot-ish stage area where you had to stand not sit, to see the show.

After several minutes of the musicians tuning up and an emcee winding up the crowd for a "legend"- which is a completely accurate term to define who Jimmy Cliff is - out came the man himself  in green, red and yellow with a gold headband and proceeded to demonstrate how great a performer and upbeat a presence he truly was. I can assure you that the last time I stood and danced in place to the music, sang along at the singer's insistence and shouted my lines during the music on cue was, well, never, really.

I loved this show and I loved Jimmy Cliff. PLC said it was the most worthwhile show he'd ever seen afterwards and I agreed.

The music was not cranked up too loud here and the lack of seating melted away as a concern as he started the show with "You Can Get It If You Really Want". He also covered Cat Steven's "Wild World", did a song with the lyric refrain,"they took the children’s bread, and give it to the dogs" and a song about Afghanistan that had the same theme as one he made years ago about Vietnam. Neither song had a pro-war or a pro-let's-give-the-top-one-percent-more-tax-breaks theme to it. A few, but not many, people seemed to leave the area during the one about Afghanistan. The vast majority stayed.

He also sang"The Harder they Come" which was the first reggae-styled song I remember hearing and being thrilled by after Desmond Dekker's "The Israelite" hit from the late '60s.

Cliff did a cover of  "I Can See Clearly Now" as well as "Rivers of Babylon"  a rendition of his classic "Many Rivers To Cross" that brought tears to my eyes and about ten others in a show whose last number was called "One More". "One more" was the audience response till it became clear his show was indeed at an end.

As we were exiting to go back to the amphitheater to watch the last few songs of Allison Kraus and her country-inflected band Union Station (they were very good but it just wasn't quite the same) we both said to each other we suspected we'd already seen the highlight of the day and we were correct about that.

Unfortunately for Miss Kraus the way the event was staged necessarily meant having to miss all or part of some bands in order to see others. Of the bands we were aware of, or in earshot of, her band and she herself sounded very good and she had a wry sense of humor that would have been more enjoyable in a serial-band style setting. I have to say cramming a bunch of groups onto multiple stages seems silly if well-intended in someone's mind. If they are worth seeing or hearing and they're all booked- why not use one stage and see them all? But I suppose the preponderance of booths hawking various skills and items was another aspect of this event I had only belatedly realized wasn't simply a concert.

 

One clear fact about the shows in the main amphitheater was that the music- especially the bass end of it -was cranked up beyond human endurance unless perhaps you were already skipping from planet to planet in a drug-induced atmosphere of your own. And except for some wafts of pretty potent pot and a bit- but not too much- of beer this was not my impression here.

 

Maybe we're just too damn old.

 

Anyway the last twobands we were to see were Tegan and Sara and The Shins.

 

Tegan and Sara were a female duo that seemed well-known to many in the crowd and they did quirkily short pop songs that were each a little over or under about two-minutes it seemed to me and I found them rather interesting if not terribly coherent. PLC found them less amusing than I did and we both still had our teeth rattling at the venue's insistence on shattering sound levels. Perhaps with a lyric sheet I might have fared a bit better but I had my brave concert grimace on and was, in fact, somewhat charmed by the almost elfin or anime-like figures the two petite women cut on stage with such a big sound around and behind them from the four male musicians backing them as well as from them.

 

In any event after their set concluded PLC and I wandered up to the "VIP" lounge which one of the ushers had earlier mentioned upon seeing our wrist bands we were entitled to. I had bought the tickets in July right after I'd gotten paid. They weren't THAT expensive but I might've shelled out a bit more than I probably might have otherwise. However, I'd apparently forgotten this little fact and could've gotten better parking as a perk instead of better parking for the$30.00 I paid. We went up to the VIP lounge and still saw a long line of folks waiting for complementary food. Unfortunately we'd already eaten our plates of faux-Thai mediocrities moments before and even though it was "VIP" it was still a big 'ole honkin' line. I will say I kept drawing PLC's attention to at least two or three VIP cutey-pie 20-somethings that graced the big ole honkin' line with their sexy bodies and cute faces. To look was to be besotted by this nearly rude display of beauty. One blonde young man had a very handsome face and a flawless body and a posterior view that turned my usually orally-fixated sensibilities a bit inside out or at least upside down.  Another dark-haired young man had the appearance of a book-wormy nerd of sorts with rather prominent teeth but some how the combination of all of his elements in totality was ravishing nonetheless. PLC seemed ready to go rather shortly after I'd gotten a beer to relax. No doubt he wanted to spare me or himself or others from the spectacle of me not quite able to not stare at the types of lads I've always stared at but now with the additional trace of unconscious slobber my doddering old age threatened to bestow my gobsmacked countenance with. Okay- I hope I wasn't that bad but I didn't argue with his timing. Short of stumbling upon a time machine and thereby fitting into a pair of skinny-legged pants I would otherwise mortally wound trying to zip up today to go scouting for talent- it was probably a good suggestion on his part. Poor PLC. Gads I'm bad.

 

When we got back TheShins were finally to make their show-concluding appearance. They did and thesound of their music was very much as the sound of the CDs and downloaded musicwe'd been listening to for the last few years. And yet.

By about the fourth or fifth song PLC said he didn't feel that great and wondered if I would mind going early? In fact, I replied, I was somehow not terribly interested in the music we'd actually come primarily to see- though Jimmy Cliff HAD been a strong seconding as to why we came.  Sadly, the Shins sounded so much like their music and the music was truly all they were offering that their portion of the show seemed to lack some inspirational fire.We agreed on this and so left. We were able to beat most of the traffic this way.

 Hence we were disappointed by the Shins but still reveling in the Jimmy Cliff concert we'd seen and so a splendid time was had by us both as we drove home.

Of course if we HAD stumbled across a time machine.........but that's another story in a galaxy far, far away.....

 

The week intervening before our next more staid event was punctuated by a lot of work toward preparing for an audit at my work. That involved a lot of prep trying to make coherent the "philosophy" of our most recent corporate masters who leaned toward a type of "corporatese" as I prefer to call it that has a very tiny resemblance to, say, the English language and a very heavy rendering of the pastiche of buzz phrases and gung-ho pretend enthusiasms that passes for their official Bible of competitiveness and team spirit. I did,however, do a nice job reorganizing a number of files that had gone rather to seed but now were reborn as an efficient and complete set of calibrated records. Of course almost none of this mattered for my section of the audit but the auditor was quite savvy at honing in onto the weak spots of my presentation which nonetheless passed muster as the saying goes.

The other punctuation mark for the week was the fact that PLC had lost his wallet with all of his IDs and his bank card. He was also trying to create a coherent essay on current political concerns as well as meticulously re-organizing his taxes and income documentation for a possible reassessment at the time he'd become ill over a decade ago. It was painstaking work for both endeavors. The lost wallet stayed lost but he was able to get the wheels in motion to regain what he'd lost.

So after a busy week we were pretty efficient in getting over the Santa Cruz mountains Friday night to see Glenn Greenwald speak in Santa Clara.

Glenn Greenwald

PLC had taken over trying to find a place for us to eat in Santa Clara since it was the most expedient thing to do given the time allotted. As it turned out the Hyatt hotel adjacent to the convention center had a very nice Italian restaurant, Tusca,we felt lucky to be at once we located it in the hotel lobby.

PLC chose to try the"Chicken Mercado" pizza and I opted for a whole wheat penne pasta with a couple of great cheeses.  I'm sure except for the chicken Biggles could've eaten all we ordered in comfort and with a clean conscience. We shared an antipasti plate (I always wondered if someone would devised a "propasti" plate for the Italianate illiterate among us) with paper-thin rounds of mozzarella, a fig jam, honey and Italian bread as well as two feathery light green salads. My penne past was better than PLC's pizza I got the impression we both thought but overall the food was very good and well prepared and we had an older gentleman who was Italian attending us. A bit more luxury than I'd had in mind for a meal but it was pretty affordable actually and I eschewed any wine. I joked with PLC that I knew he wouldn't enjoy me being sloshed trying to stay awake while Glenn Greenwald regaled us with the realities of our suspended civil liberties-especially for Mid Eastern people living in the United States.

Not sloshed- mission accomplished.

 

The event with Mr. Greenwald was actually a benefit for the "Muslim Legal Fund of America" and the "National Coalition to Protect Civil Freedoms" organizations.

When we got to the room- a theater type room with an upward sweep of seats we were a bit surprised at how sparse the turnout was. Because of the nature of the event after I had downloaded the tickets we had a couple of things foul up on our computers and so PLC and I made some jokes about being under surveillance.  The truth is PLC’s family had had their phone obviously tapped during the era of the Contras in Central America and especially after the Mary Knoll nuns had been murdered. It was a scary time for them. I have also been photographed by what I assumed to be FBI agents decades ago in the early 70s for some of my political activities. All just part and parcel of living in a police state that seems to be inching toward making it’s profile more distinct with each passing year. Of course for most white citizens of the US there has been little to worry about ultimately compared to many others’ experiences.

 

 

And so it turned out that a couple of hours were devoted to several speakers most of whom were interesting relating their experiences and in regard to the people they were trying to give voice to and defend. There was at least one woman at the event who noisily demanded after about the third speaker that Glenn Greenwald speak as “That’s why most of us are here!” The woman was persuaded to leave the room and I thought I could hear her somewhat outside in the lobby area but then she either calmed down or left. It was a very odd occurrence as well as being rude and kind of off-putting in that Greenwald obviously cared about allowing the groups who the event was ostensibly for speak to the issues of incarceration without charges, solitary confinement and the underlying fact that even their government prosecutors admitted in many cases that the people being held isolated from outside information and their families were not guilty of any specific crime except the most tenuous of associations. It was a point made in the photos of imprisoned Muslim civilians on the walls and in pamphlets and from the speeches of those on stage that it is the total absence of anything most Americans would assume was meant by “due process” that was truly disturbing.

Finally Greenwald spoke and he was riveting, articulate and direct as usual. I have recommended his column before and I suppose he is as close to what I imagined journalism and reporting to actually be about when I started out with the notion that I would be a reporter many years ago. Of course, I did not become that reporter but I certainly find it easy to separate the slick nonsense paraded on the telly from someone who is actually engaged in trying to keep people informed about subjects that are difficult to reconcile with many American’s desire to see themselves as part of a system and culture that values truth and justice. These are perilous times for many people and I’m not immune to the thought that acts of terror are a part of our reality. But what our nation is doing in the name of fighting  this terror is not what I would’ve expected- naïve as that may be- and has revealed itself to be another pork-barrel industry which is recruiting rather than blunting an appeal to would-be terrorists.

Up is down and down is up. We must abandon our principles in order to defend them is what much of the last several and the current administrations seem to be embarked on.

It is up to the citizens to wrest back some control of these circumstances. It will not improve on “automatic pilot” – especially if the “pilot” is a drone.

I volunteered a donation after Greenwald spoke during a somewhat uncomfortable and yet amusing bid by one of the American Muslim speakers seeking support for just these kinds of informational events as well as funding to defend those caught in this era’s version of World War II’s Japanese internment camps. That speaker realized people are not fond of being asked for money in a public form particularly but he definitely had a sense of humor and even sport in doing it.

At last the evening was over and I dragged PLC up to the stage to meet Greenwald for a moment but kept finding my self-consciousness allowed almost everyone else to chat with him before I did. Finally I stepped up to him and extended my hand which he shook – and then realized that I had forgotten to let go of his and was squeezing it much harder than I would have had my nerves not gotten the better of me. I felt that I more or less mumbled my appreciation to him about his reporting and that I was glad to be able to offer what little I could to a cause that seemed very justified. I also mentioned the name of the other great journalist of the age of terror we are going through, Chris Hedges of Truthdig and Greenwald brightened when I mentioned this according to PLC afterward and told me that he’d just had lunch with Hedges a couple of weeks before and had read one of his books about his experiences of war. I was too nervous to relax and so left Greenwald rather as awkwardly and shyly as I had walked up to him- though he is very friendly and down to earth- and felt I’d seemed banal and somewhat idiotic compared to a couple of older people and students who’d spoken to him ahead of me. PLC assured me that I had been completely fine in my statements and very brief words with Greenwald and that it was obvious the reporter was also shy around people one-to-one by his own observation. That’s PLC’s version of “No worries, mate.”

Ok then- good enough for me.

 

And finally…

Like everyone else I am also concerned about our friend Banyul’s absence from the site and continue my hopes and prayers that he will be regaling us with more tales of the city he loves and some culinary and cultural insights when he is well enough to poke his head back into our little sphere of Xangaland.

I’ll chat with you all again, soon.