IT'S MOISHE TIME!

 

Subscribe to My Blog! December 19, 2022 IT'S MOISHE TIME! PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com Yes, Bloggellinis, it's that time of year ,,,, Chanukah! or Hannukah! or Chanookah! or Hannekeh! And that means it's time to sing that great Jewish holiday standard... MOISHE THE GREEN-NOSED HERRING!! CLICK HERE TO WATCH THE VIDEO OF THE CRACKPOT CRONES BRINGING "MOISHE" HOME. "Moishe" was written by my dear Auntie Hannah, who wanted the us kids to have a Chanukah song to compete with "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." When Carolyn and I (aka The Crackpot Crones) created a holiday show in 2012, "CRONES FOR THE HOLIDAYS," of course we had to include "Moishe." The last line of "Moishe," as written by Auntie Hannah, was (something like) "May you become gefilte fish." But Carolyn's future son-in-law, Will, objected to the bloodthirsty lyric. He challenged us: "Rudolph doesn't die in HIS song! Why should Moishe die?" Will was vegan. Long before many people were vegan, Will was vegan. At first, I resisted changing the sacred family ditty. But I had to admit that Will had a very good point. Many things need to change with the times, and I finally admitted that "Moishe the Green-Nosed Herring" was one of them. So the last line became "You'll never be gefilte fish!" And, really, if Rudolph gets to go down in history for lighting the way, Moishe could at least be allowed to live. In her final years, Auntie Hannah moved up to Modesto to live near her daughter Miriam, and attended a performance of "CRONES FOR THE HOLIDAYS" in San Francisco. So I was able to honor her by introducing her and insisting that she stand up to receive the audience's appreciation of her gift to them. That was a very nice moment for Hannah and me. Dear Bloggelinis: I could chatter on, but it is now time for THE FINAL HEARING OF THE JANUARY 6 COMMITTEE to start! Gotta be there for this one. I know we're all praying for the same thing: That the committee will recommend indicting Trump for his insurrection. Terry

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Killer Robots in San Francisco? REALLY?!?!

 

Subscribe to My Blog! December 6, 2022 Killer Robots in SF? REALLY?!?! PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com When I saw the email from Bloggellini Diana telling me about a protest at 9:30 am yesterday morning against the vote of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors to buy killer robots for the police department, I knew I had to show up. KILLER ROBOTS?!? ARE THE 8 SUPERVISORS WHO VOTED FOR THIS (INCLUDING MY OWN) NUTS? WHAT IS THE POTENTIAL FOR ABUSE HERE? LET'S JUST SAY: GIGANTIC. Why are we even talking about this? So many of the speakers said something like, "I cannot believe I have to say these words -- No killer robots in San Francisco!." And so many of us in the crowd were saying the same thing to each other: "I cannot believe we have to protest this!" The city of San Francisco has GOT to be an oasis of sanity in a world that gets more and more absurd. And here it is, a Killer Robot: Isn't it cute? You can tow it behind your van! And please don't call it a killer robot. That's so crude. It's a "lethal autonomous weapon. commonly called by its acronym: L.A.W. Get it? L.A.W. enforces the law -and with no risk to the police! The protest was called at the last minute by Supervisor Dean Preston (scrutinizing his phone in the above photo), so there weren't a lot of people there. Preston called it because there's going to be a second vote today on the killer robots. There's a chance that, if three Supervisors change their minds, we'll be done with the issue. One supervisor already has. I phoned and emailed my own supervisor, Raphael Mandelman, to tell him he was out of his fucking skull to think that a weapon like this would never be abused. The public is, by state law, supposed to have 30 days to comment on issues like this, but the killer robot acquisition was added at the last minute to a bill that had already been approved. According to the San Francisco Chronicle:   Police have said they would use the robots to kill only in extremely rare cases with violent suspects, such as mass shooters, suicide bombers, or others who are armed and endangering the public.. A high-ranking SFPD official would have to approve any use of the deadly robot. You see where we're going with this. During the terrible mass shooting at the elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, the police didn't stop the killer, because they were afraid to risk their own lives. Understandably so. If only the Uvalde police had had their very own killer robot, so many little children's lives would have been saved! Certainly only "a high-ranking official" would have made the decision. And certainly, the robot would never have shot anyone except the killer. I do understand why police would prefer sending in a robot to risking their own lives when facing a crazy person with an assault rifle. And I certainly understand why armaments manufacturers go to sleep dreaming of selling a Lethal Autonomous Weapon to every single LAW-enforcement department in the country. But, in the immortal words of Alexandra Petri, the satirical columnist in the Washington Post: "I think if you are going to draw a line someplace, killer robots should be on the other side of the line." Click here to read Petri's entire hilarious column on this subject. After the protest, I went home and did my bit for the cause, easy to do since I live in a storefront apartment. I made a display in my window of the quite wonderful poster, a print-out of Petri's column, and the contact info for my own supervisor: Now I wait with baited breath to hear about the vote of the Supervisors this afternoon on killer robots.. AND the vote in Georgia to see how many people there have retained their sanity. ALL FOR NOW, BLOGGELLINIS! Terry

BUFFY UPDATE

 

Subscribe to My Blog! December 5, 2022 Update on Buffy Ste-Marie PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com BUFFY UPDATE Bloggelini Boze researched and discovered that it was President Lyndon Johnson who strangled Buffy's career in the U.S. by secretly contacting radio stations and requesting that they not play her music. I understood why the President of the United States feared the power of her voice when I listened to MY COUNTRY TIS OF THY PEOPLE YOU'RE DYING, This is Buffy's anthem to the terrible suffering of her people at the hands of the United States government. It's a long song -- Necessarily so. I wept as I listened. For those seven minutes I opened myself to that suffering, and I wept. The rage and pain in Buffy's voice, the poetry of her lyrics describing this horrific history. stripped away my numbness. Her song allowed me to feel, for a brief moment, what all Indigenous people must feel. That's the power of the music of Buffy Ste-Marie. LBJ was right to be frightened by her. Bloggellinis, please consider clicking this link and listening to Buffy's great song. Terry

Buffy Sainte-Marie Finally Gets Her Due.

Subscribe to My Blog! November 23, 2022 Buffy Sainte-Marie Finally Gets Her Due PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com Somehow, it seems appropriate, on the eve of Thanksgiving, to write about a wonderful Indigenous singer and activist whose music was actually censored by the U.S. government -- an artist who is, at 81, finally up where she belongs. Have you ever heard Buffy Sainte-Marie sing in concert, live? The first times for me were in the 60s and early 70s. She sang of love, as everyone does, and she sang of the injustices perpetrated against her people, Indigenous people. I never heard anyone else sing about that in the 60s. So Buffy was educating me as she entertained me. Whether the lyrics spoke of the delights of love or the history of her people, somehow a current of joy flowed from the singer to me in the audience. Buffy Sainte-Marie always lifted me up. She was one of those joyful performers. Most recently, I heard her at a free concert outside iLincoln Center in New York. It was 1997. I remember seeing the poster advertising the event. Buffy Sainte-Marie? I hadn't heard her name in years, decades. Where had she been? To me, she remained a star. I had to go to that concert. I dragged an unwilling friend along with me. We came early to that cold, concrete pavilion, because I was certain the event would be mobbed. But no. It was a decent crowd, but there were empty chairs. How could this be? Oh well. She had the same bright, rich voice, the same beauty, the same rage against injustice, the same poetry in her lyrics. The same joy flowing outward to us. Wow. I didn't realize how much I had missed her. My friend was appropriately blown away. And now, Sainte-Marie, 81 years old, is the subject of an "American Masters" documentary on PBS, "Buffy Sainte-Marie: Carry It On." And there is a long article about her in the NY Times. So she is finally getting her due. She has inspired singers from Joni Mitchell to Robbie Robertson to the Indigo Girls. "She's a massive bright light and a guide to so many," said Indigenous singer, Tanya Tagaq. Sainte-Marie is the first Indigenous person to win an Oscar, for her pop hit, "Up Where We Belong," used in the movie "An Officer and a Gentleman." And she's the first woman to breastfeed her baby on television, on an episode of Sesame Street! ("Lots of mothers feed their babies this way," she explained to an inquisitive Big Bird.) That's quite a range of accomplishments. And yet somehow, as she became more active in the American Indian Movement in the 60s, Sainte-Marie found it more and more difficult to get a concert booking. From the NY Times:   Years later, before an American radio interview, a D.J. apologized to her for pulling her music from his programming in that era. He then showed her a letter, on White House stationery, commending him for having suppressed Sainte-Marie's music. She was flabbergasted. "I was having a heck of a time in other countries," Sainte-Marie said, "and when I came back to the U.S. everything had kind of gone away and my records weren't played." It "never occurred" to her, she said, that there was a government-supported ban of her music. "I just thought, singers come, singers go." Is that the reason that Buffy Sainte-Marie kind of disappeared? Is this why she isn't as well-known as, say, Joan Baez? I assumed she'd chosen to do other things with her time -- was totally focussed on activism or raising her kids. And, yes, she WAS doing those things. But she also couldn't get a concert booking in this country because her songs were kept off the radio, by secret government fiat! Were other musicians subject to this kind of secret censorship? Secret censorship is impossible to fight! The Times article concludes:   Despite the challenges she faced, Sainte-Marie's hopeful energy and radiant smile seem impermeable to cynicism and despair. "I don't like misery of any kind," she said. "So if something starts bothering me, I either put up an umbrella or I go inside. I do something about it, because I'm really uncomfortable being unhappy." These final words from Buffy Sainte-Marie stopped my brain in its tracks. "Uncomfortable being unhappy" Am I also "uncomfortable being unhappy"? I think I must answer no. Unlike Buffy, I am often very comfortable being unhappy. My unhappiness seems appropriate, inevitable, perhaps deserved. Certainly her refusal to be unhappy must be part of the radiance that both I and the Times interviewer have experienced. Thanks, Buffy, for revealing the secret of your flowing joy. Dear Bloggellinis: I tried to find a link to the Times article published yesterday, but I couldn't. Is it too soon for it to be online? Or perhaps Buffy is being censored for having revealed government censorship? I do not remember having this problem before. In any case, Happy Thanksgiving! This holiday has always been important to my family because, as Jews, it was the one major holiday we shared with everyone. It was also the one holiday that my mother always hosted. And now, I am hosting, and using my mother's fancy silverware, which I inherited. We will be vegetarian, for the second year in a row. I feel good about that because I hate cooking a turkey. The kitchen gets covered with grease and I have no idea how to make good gravy and then I feel guilty throwing out all that damn leftover turkey which somehow grosses me out. So, we will be turkey-free! AND I am going to bake my first pumpkin pie! I have found the pies of the last few years unsatisfactory. Yes, just like Buffy, when something bothers me, I DO something about it! I will report back on the satisfactoriness (or lack thereof) of my pie-making debut. All for now. Terry

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Schlepping 4 Democracy & Wandering with the Pups

 

Subscribe to My Blog! November 7, 2022 Schlepping 4 Democracy & Wandering 4 the Pups PREVIOUS BLOGS: TERRYBAUM.BLOGSPOT.COM PLEASE FORWARD THIS TO ANYONE WHO MIGHT BE INTERESTED. PODCASTS, EVENTS, INFO, POSTERS: LilithTheater.com So Gordon Mar is a good liberal supervisor who represents the Sunset, the southwest area of San Francisco. It's all single family homes and is the most politically conservative area of the city. Mar took a stand against all the recalls for the D.A. and School Board that we just had. That took guts because the recalls were popular in his district. I also was against the recalls. And now he is suffering for his integrity. Gordon Mar's challenger and has no attributes other than having supported the recalls. He's only lived in the district for seven months. He's done nothing And he might win. And Mar has created affordable housing, is working on climate changes issues. He's been a hardworking progressive supervisor. So it seemed a good thing to support Gordon Mar's re-election. So Saturday, it was raining very lightly. I put on my raincoat and sturdy leather boots, walked down to the underground Muni stop in the Castro. And I mean down. I could have rolled down to the Muni stop. But still, I did walk eight blocks. Took Muni underground to the West Portal station, then got the 48 Quintara bus to 21st Avenue. Walked four loooong blocks to the Gordon Mar campaign headquarters. My job was to ring the bell of every voter who had already been identified as a Mar supporter and find out if they had already voted, if not, did they have a plan to vote, and basically urge them to vote. And record all this information. I was assigned a VERY LARGE precinct that was VERY FAR AWAY. That's because I got there kinda late. All the close precincts were already taken. I walked from 21st Avenue to 36th Avenue, so that's fifteen blocks. Then I walked from Noriega to Ortega to Pacheco to Rivera to Quintara. It is so very cool that the streets in the Sunset are in alphabetical order. Okay, that was four looong blocks. I HAD ARRIVED AT MY PRECINCT! I COULD START RINGING DOORBELLS! I had taken two forms of public transportation and walked THIRTY BLOCKS in a light rain. I was wet. I was cold. My heavy boots made every step more work. I was exhausted. So I called Mar headquarters and told them I would finish the precinct the next day. I didn't mention that I hadn't even started canvassing. And then I called a LYFT and went home. That was my political activism for the day. Oh, my home felt so cosy and warm. I was so happy to be there. I took a nice nap. And when I woke up, I realized it was the last Daylight savings day, and I could still take the pups for a walk in the late afternoon! Somehow, I got my mojo back and walked up hill and down dale with the pups. We went to our favorite park, which is a bit hidden. In this late afternoon, it was empty. It wasn't really raining. It was misting. I had never seen an angel trumpet so full of blooms. And somebody had written an entire poem in chalk on the blacktop! It was so beautiful. This is the top part of the poem. "Morning movements call awake As cup to saucer." I'm not sure what that means, but it conjures something in me. This is the bottom part. A lovely, strange, partly incomprehensible, neatly written in chalk, poem to say to me, "Yo! I'm here, you're here. This is the moment! Here's a present of some words to remind you of the fog and the morning and MUNI's whispering metronome." And I had just been on the MUNI and I hadn't even noticed! No, that's not true. I always hear the shoosh-click shoosh-click sound the MUNI makes. But I never thought of it as a whispering metronome. Thank you, unknown poet of State Street Park. So I tossed the ball for the pups for a while. I throw two balls, one after another, so that they both have something to chase. And then we headed home. I noticed that someone had a wonderful surprise waiting for them on their doorstep. And on Eureka Street, the Gingkos are beginning to turn gold. And then I was home. And the next day, Sunday, the sun was shining and I put on my good walking shoes and took a Lyft to my precinct. Of course mostly people weren't home. But some were and I recorded their responses. Many were very enthusiastic about Gordon Mar, which made me feel good. And I walked the twenty blocks back to headquarters, and turned in all my data. And then I took a LYFT home. I sure hope you win, Gordon. But I can't do any more for you. You're too damn far away. And your blocks are too looong. Good luck! Today and tomorrow, I'm sticking closer to home. I'm going to phone bank in the Castro at the Democratic Party headquarters. I'll probably be calling Georgia or Pennsylvania. But I'll be closer to home myself. Bloggellinis, I'm scared. I think we all are. Doing these little things, like canvassing that precinct, holds back my fear a little bit. I won't let that fear keep me from enjoying the special moments, like a poem on the blacktop in the park. Terry

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