Bob Weir made a rare appearance at the Ventura Theater Saturday night.  Rare in that he had heretofore, not been known to tour solo acoustic.  And while he did some of that, he played much of the show with a couple of friends nearby.  Bob is the youngest and currently most well-known of the living members of the Grateful Dead. 

The show was attended by a mix of dead heads from back in the day and a younger set who are Phish and Further Festival experienced.  The show started off with opening act Jonathan Wilson, who looks like a modern-day version of what Weir looked like back in 1966.  He plays and sings well enough and joined Bob during the second set.

Weir, who will turn 65 this year, came out and immediately started in with Hell in a Bucket, then a Dylan cover, followed by Dark Hollow, On the Road Again… Local favorite Phil Salazar came out with his fiddle to a warm greeting by the audience and the two  them proceeded to launch into Mexicali Blues.  After that Bob veered into The Other One, which was the first time of the evening I truly missed the drums of Hart/Kreutzmann and the thunder-clap of Phil Lesh’s bass.  If you’d like to hear a version from 1971, here’s a good one: 

My first experience of Ventura was hitching to a Dead show at the Fairgrounds in 1977.  It was another scene, but I remember more dirt than many of the other venues…I also recall seeing some friends from elementary school there – can’t say I remember much else about that show though.

Saturday’s show was well attended and  enjoyed by all, perhaps some more than others.  Maybe it was the beer, maybe I’m getting on, but I nodded off for a song or two before the night was through…

The day after Thanksgiving brought the passing of Larry Hagman, a gentleman, activists, man of the sixties and seventies and actor.  Larry was a genuinely nice guy, who gained success in television but never let it go to his head.  Larry and Maj, his wife of 58 years, had a home up Sulfur Mountain Road that he called Heaven.  And in many ways, it was.  High enough to reach the clouds, with a view of the mountain range and Pacific Ocean as though taken from an airplane, Larry had built a compound with a lot of neat features.  Id been there a couple of times, one of which was when we did an interview of him for Ventana Magazine (http://www.ventanamonthly.com/article.php?id=334&IssueNum=31y)

On that particular day, Larry and Maj were both home and  Larry was giving us the nickel tour.  Through the house we went, into the spa grotto that Maj had designed, past the giant sliding doors on to the south patio.  Up the stairs to the roof (where he proceeded to walk the roofline,).  Then into his den, ending up in the kitchen for a nice chat.  All the while, he had a little bell which he would jingle now and then, which prompted Maj to ring back with her bell of a different tone.  It was how they communicated…

Larry was from Texas but didn’t care for the local politics of the family Bush.  Throughout his life, he did his part in helping progressive candidates move along.  He was also an advocate of solar power, converting the energy at Heaven to become one of the largest residential installations in the U.S.

It’s too bad that this happened now.  Just has Dallas was making a comeback.  As many of the things that Larry had worked for are   coming to fruition.  Mr. Hagman was a gentleman and an all around nice guy.  We need more people like him…

My friend Enrique Candioti died earlier this week.  Enrique, aka Henry, aka DJ Ambassador Jr., was a very interesting man who did many different things.  Some knew him only as the art director of the VCReporter and Livety Outerwear (http://www.facebook.com/livity.creations) an L.A. based hipster clothing company ; some knew him as the world-class DJ who hosted many a reggae party ( including performances in NYC, playing gigs for the Marley family, etc…);  others knew Enrique as the founder and chief peddler of Henry’s Frozen Delight (http://www.henrysfrozendelight.com), a dairy free vegan ice cream line that was  ridiculously good and expensive to make as well. You’d find EC making the ‘ice cream’ late into the night in a rented kitchen or out at the Ojai Farmer’s Market on Sunday giving free samples to anyone who wanted a taste (Mariel Hemingway was a regular customer)  Some knew him as the young successful freestyle skateboarder back in his native Argentina.

Some knew him as father, son, husband and friend.  About a year ago, Enrique, who was the cleanest living guy I knew, was diagnosed with cancer of the brain and abdomen.  He immediately went in for surgery and seemed to be doing what he has always done – beat the odds with a calm demeanor and a smile on his face.  Over the past year, I’d seen him a few times and was hoping that all his good karma would help him in this battle.  Three weeks ago I took Enrique out for lunch in Ojai (photo enclosed) and aside from being a little slow walking, had no outward complaints.  He said that he was to get an update two days later.  I had heard that he had been refered to hospice, which is when doctors give up on their patient.  But I know Enrique never gave up – he was built differently than that.  I’m sorry for him, sorry for his wife and young son and sorry I didn’t get a chance to say goodbye.  Adios Renaissance Man…

Effective today, internet shopping for Californians means paying sales tax.  It’s about time.  For many years, internet sales have had an unfair advantage over local stores throughout the land in that they didn’t have to collect sales tax.  This difference, often 7-9% meant real price differentials for consumers, who often don’t value local retailers as much as they did saving $$.  But the reality was that those savings changed the equation for local municipalities, who needed those tax dollars to pave streets, paint schools and hire cops.

In California, where a very large share of internet purchasing is generated, this menat that hundreds of millions of potential tax dollars were not generated. And that profits from sales made by companies in other states and beyond, didn’t stay in our community.  Buying from Washington state based Amazon meant that founder Jeff Bezos and his shareholders would benefit from those profits far more than California residents ever could.  And the much lower warehousing costs for merchandise in North Dakota helps create jobs there, but is difficult to match here in California.  These are important points often lost to the average consumer.

There was a time when general merchandise profits ranged from 20-40%.  But in the hyper-competitive world market we now live, I know retailers who eek out a living on less than ten percent profit.  And for many, it’s hard to compete with the free delivery, no sales tax, liberal exchange policies that many online retailers offer.

During its nascent years, the internet needed some help to establish itself.  As I recall, Amazon lost money its first six years, big money.  But the idea was sound and more people started buying online.  So too with thousands of other sites (eBay, Overstock, etc…).  Now these companies are very much in the black and don’t need the unfair advantage they have enjoyed the past decade.  It’s about time…

  It being that our son Marshall is a Banana Slug, I couldn’t resist a visit to the newly opened Grateful Dead archives at UCSC.  Known as Dead Central, this relatively small annex to the McHenry Library is a nice but unremarkable historic tour of the phenomenon that was the Grateful Dead.

What’s there was a mix of some of the items that represented the band, it’s touring and its fans.  Letters to and from the band, posters, concert photos and some original lyrics and art from a variety of people, the displays showed only 1% of the entire archive.  There’s even someone’s PhD. dissertation thesis entitled “A Qualitative Examination of the Ritual Structure and the Spiritual Nature of the Grateful Dead Experience.”  Yes, certainly…

What’s nice is that you get a glimpse of what the heck the Dead were all about.  Some song lyrics and images brings back good memories…

What’s clearly missing is any sonic representation of the band – it’s dead silent in there.  No actual instruments accentuate the setting (only a photograph of Jerry’s guitar) but not one note of sound, of course the reason why the band was so revered.  Also lacking is a more complete understanding of the cultural side of the fans, many of whom traveled with the band to an extent not seen before or since the period.

Perhaps more than any other musical group, the Dead are difficult to put in words or even pictures, you just had to be there to understand.  And that’s why so many people were there.  Over the years, through thousands of concerts, the band was interesting in a number of ways:  their playlists were constantly evolving, leaving fans to wonder what music they might here on any given night; their shows were often marathons of jam music that twisted and turned into songs after ten minute space jams that allowed the band to explore and the fans to whirl until they somehow came together on a downbeat towards the next recognizable melody; they allowed people to record the concert, unlike today’s concert situations that confiscate cell phones for having taken a photo of some bands on stage.

Let’s call the archive’s effort a start and like so many starts; may it find its wind further on down the road.

Last night I experienced Rubicon Theatre Company’s Gem of the Ocean, an excellent production.  Starting with the set, a two-story towering structure that transports you to Pittsburgh PA circa 1904, the play revolves around the lives of black Americans who have lived through slavery, prejudice and poverty.  The players are very, very good, with exceptional performances by Lissias White, Chris Butler and Anthony Haney.  Written by the Pulitzer Prize winning August Wilson, whose own life started in a poor section of Pittsburgh in 1945, it’s a story that everyone should take in.  That’s the good news – the bad news is that the run ends on Sunday, June 10.  GO SEE IT!

Ray Bradbury, one of the most prolific and creative writers of our time, has died.  He passed yesterday at the age of 91, having lived a full life and left a body of work that is truly amazing.  I first read Ray’s work as a teen, delving into his fiction as a way to ride the cosmos without the benefit of a rocket.  Ray wrote books that influenced my thinking:  Fahrenheit 451 (the temperature that paper ignites); The Illustrated Man (a dark story with a violent ending) and my favorite:  The Martian Chronicles.

It was the latter that caught my imagination – written in 1950, the book speaks to exploration and life on other planets well in advance of America’s commitment to such endeavors.  A teleplay, done on KPPC (now known as KPCC) told the story of Mars is Heaven one of the stories in The Martian Chronicles collection.  I suggest that if you want to experience the concept of Theater of the Mind, you listen to it.  Please do so in a dark room so that you can let the effects take hold of your mind.

Here’s a link to the Dimension X production from 1950:  http://ia700506.us.archive.org/8/items/Dimension-X/Dimx_e014_MarsIsHeaven.mp3
Ray was proud of what he had done in his life.  Although he didn’t attend college, he did commit to studying daily in a library as a young man.  Eventually he married a librarian and the rest is history.  Ray was given many awards, but was very proud of being awarded the French Commandeur Ordre des Arts et des Lettres medal, which he wore almost every day the last few years (and which is around his neck in the photo above, taken in Ojai in 2010).

Thanks for all you did Ray – we’ll miss you!

My friend and former fellow newspaperman David Glassey passed away last Monday from sarcoma cancer, it was reported in the obits today.  David and I worked together in the early 2000′s when I was first getting my arms around the VCReporter, he was perhaps my first sales manager.  David was a man in his 50′s at that point, but you couldn’t tell  it from the spring in his step and energy in everything he did.  After his time with our company, he moved on to work at the Ventura County Star, United Blood Services and the American Red Cross.  To his great misfortune, both of David’s lungs gave out but to his great fortune, he was successful in a double lung transplant.  I can’t imagine the roller coaster of emotion and struggle during that time but David was always upbeat about his journey and he wound up winning that battle.

I admired him, even if we were different sorts of people.  But one thing we shared was a great love of our families.  On any given day, I would heard David talking with his wife, or encouraging his daughter to do well, have fun, to be the person they wanted to be.  And at the end of every such conversation, I knew what was going to happen:  on the other end of the phone, one of them would say “I love you” and without missing a beat, David would always answer with “love you more.”

Now that he has passed, those words mean even more to me, and assuredly to those closest to him.  Does love disappear when someone goes?  Who knows, but I know that this world will not be as good a place without him…

I’m sure that David will be missed by the many people he touched, me being one of them.

As you probably know, Maurice Sendak died today.  Like other adults of a certain age, I was not exposed to him as a young person, but became aware of his magical books when I read them to our boys about twenty years ago.  Sendak, a true individual, wrote and illustrated Where the Wild Things Are, In The Night Kitchen, Chicken Soup with Rice and several other lesser known books for children, although he was known to have said that they were not children’s books.  His interview with Stephen Colbert last year was hilarious, as Sendak stood toe to toe with Colbert’s silly questions http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/406796/january-24-2012/grim-colberty-tales-with-maurice-sendak-pt–1 . 

Nearly as entertaining is Christopher Walken’s reading of the most famous of Sendak’s book, Where the Wild Things Are.  Walken, always nutty but especially so in Pulp Fiction http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RKuDYbnXBJQ  and on SNL in the BOC Cowbell skit  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0uvVZg4Tw4, reads the book with his usual flair.

I expect that there are some who shy away from his writings but his words and images are indelibly etched into the memories of millions of Americans.  Thanks Maurice.

The second segment of tonight’s Sixty Minutes explores the potential harm of sugar, regardless of what form it takes.  Dr. Robert Lustig from UC San Francisco is vehement in his belief that sugar is toxic, and he’s written several papers explaining his reasoning. 

Back in the 1975, I became familiar with William Dufty’s book Sugar Blues, which at the time was perhaps the first warning shot of the dangers of sweet.  The book influenced my decision to scale back my sugar intake to practically zero.  At the time, most focus was placed on the emotional ups and downs that sugar gave consumers, hence the book’s name.  But over the past thirty-five years, research has led us to a better understanding of what this simple ingredient is doing to our population.  Obesity, hypertension, heart disease and now cancer, may all be the destination for people who consume quantities of sugar. 

What’s a safe amount?  Who knows, but one guideline points to 150 calories per day for men and 100 calories for women.  How much is that?  About one can of soda.  But before you think you’re in the clear, know this – sugar is in just about every single item of processed food you eat.  Bread, canned goods, sauces, etc…Caveat emptor.

See Dr. Lustig’s YouTube video explanation here:  http://youtu.be/dBnniua6-oM