The Operator

A slightly revised, faster, more eclectic version of what we played in high school...


Just as I prioritized flamenco over school this spring in Berkeley, this weekend I prioritized Meridian 2007 over grad school. Here is another one of our "classics" from twelve years ago - maximum respect to Eric once again for his incredible studio skills as a drummer, bassist, beatbox artist, and professional producer. The three of us played from midnight until 3am on Saturday, then from 10pm until 1am last night, and we had way too much fun. Then Jake and I got up early this morning to go to grad skool, where I gave yet another presentation. Finally going to finish the Master's on Friday - ole!! Always gotta make time for music, though. Thanks for staying tuned, y'all, I'll be posting from Tanzania soon...

The Funkmaster J.I.S. and his Big Red Wrench

This one's a little sloppy, but we were really tired last night...


OJO!!! ALL THESE SONGS WILL SOUND BETTER IF YOU HAVE GOOD SPEAKERS!!!! (my computer speakers are terrible).
Check out the new rhymes at the end of the song - but don't be alarmed when I talk about the developing world. All I'm trying to say is that it's a euphemism that makes it okay for us to go on eating our dinner in front of the TV and not do anything about the situation. Read my second-ever post on this blog (from 2005) if you want to learn more, and see pics of Ali and Baboukar.

Original Meridian Pics from '95-'96

Just got back from twelve days in Norway: swimming and fishing in the fjords, and singing country songs with Anette (video to come???). Anyway, now I've started grad skool again (just three weeks to go) so I'll be too busy to post regularly, but in the meantime, here are some old pics of Jake and me and our band. Listen to Da Spanish Song, look at the pics, and that's pretty much what we were like back in high school!!

El arte de MFST

So my folks have a really cool printer/scanner/copier that can take old photos and scan them directly to the computer. I've been playing around with it, and was able to get my old graff pics from SMCM onto the link on this blog. This photo is just a sample - check the link on the right hand column.

Da Spanish Song

Meridian 2007



Escucho mucho porque esta es
La canción con dos frijoles
Negros y también sabrosos
Bueno para nosotros si comment tallez vous

Yo no puedo caminar en el agua
Porque la cocina está muy blanca
Bananas y papel, siempre soy fiel
A mi guitarra y mis lagrimas can’t you tell?

Quiero decirte que yo te quiero
Que el amor es eterno en el cielo
En la tierra vivimos muy bien
Los sueños tragicos vil du vaere min venn?

Espero que a ustedes les gustó mi canción
Ahorita tengo que ir para romper mi corazón
Pero no se pongan tristes - todavía viviré
En los ritmos del tambor de la Gran Madre

OK, this is absolutely too much technology in one day for a Luddite like me. That being said, I'm embracing it wholeheartedly because it's at the core of my summer project - recording the classic songs from my high school band, Meridian. Today I went over to the Thomsen house and recorded this song with Eric, who's a boss when it comes to studio work. Not only is he an amazing drummer and musician, but he's transformed the basement from the dungeon it was when we practiced there ten years ago into a professional-grade studio, complete with shag carpet! We recorded this in three takes using Pro Tools, which we then transferred into ITunes, and then burned to a CD, and finally posted to the blog. I have to say I'm rather proud of myself, but really it seems that anyone can create and publish their own art because technology is making it so easy.

Clownin' in the Yay

It's my last night in Cali
my time is done
I love the Bay
but this ain't where I'm from

I play the guitar
I beat the drum
People call me mister
but I been known to go dumb

Got my stunna shades on
I'm a push you all in
Be at the casino all night
cuz I'm here to win

Just got a suitcase on Shattuck
Throw some deez on it

I be rollin' in Berzerkeley
with my punked out hair
I ain't no vegan
and I just don't care

Gonna move to Tanzania
where they call me mzungu
you don't know about me
cuz you don't come from where I do -

The suburbs
yeah I'm stacked like that
it don't matter
cuz I'm black like that

Baboukar Sallah
Gambian Boss
I pray to Allah
when I'm at a loss

Yo I'll come to your block
But I'm a stay in my car
and keep my doors locked

Una noche flamenca

So I think I got my flamenco name tonight - obviously enough, it's Alejandro Cerca. One of my fellow guitar enthusiasts hosted a night that began with accompaniment for Roberto Zamora, a well-known Bay Area singer whose story you can read at
SF Flamenco. The six of us played for two hours, and then some more of our friends from the local dance classes came over for tapas caseras. David Gutierrez, my guitar teacher of the past six months, gifted me with a tape (recorded from an LP) of La Familia Montoya from 1970 and Pepe Habichuela from 1983, which we listened to in awe. The roads that led each of us to flamenco are very different, but our love for the music and our desire to continue learning connect us as we strive to improve our technique and style.

Many of us told stories about Spain, and it's amazing to me to hear how I describe my life in Sevilla to other people. It sounds like a dream, but it was only four years ago that I left. What a romantic year it was! The wonderful thing about the flamenco community is how musical and cultural knowledge is passed on through personal relationships, and how careers and adventures overlap. Most of the people sitting around the table tonight were thirty years my elder, and although Sevilla has changed a great deal since Franco's death, the bridges and cobblestones are still the same, and many of the flamenco clubs and peñas have endured. And so we have common points of reference as we share stories and pieces of music with each other. A fascinating example of this is that I played David a couple of Bulerias falsetas that I learned from Juan in Sevilla, and David recognized the "aire" because he had taught another student who also studied with Juan at Taller Flamenco. Juan's compositions are that distinctive, and David's ears are that discerning. Que mundo mas pequeño, no?

Bye Bye Berkeley High

Wow. One day left as a public school teacher in these Disunited States of America. Disenchanted with the system though I am, my idelaism is still intact, and more importantly, my understanding that teaching is all about the personal relationships. Case in point, two of my students gifted me with pairs of socks today - an amusing homage to my collection of crazy and colorful calcetines, which my students always love to comment on and laugh about. We ended our last class with this group photo. The picture quality isn't that great because I took it with the camera on my phone (2007 - what a trip!!) but hopefully one of my students will send pics or even videos of our lasy days together. I'm going to try to upgrade my personal use of technology with a videocamera and some type of music recorder so I can capture all the brilliance of Taznania and hopefully start sharing some of it on the blog. Gotta finish the master's this summer, first, though. I'll keep trying to write regularly, though - thanks for reading, y'all.

Adios a Berkeley

So my two years here are fast coming to a close. A week from today I'll be on a plane back to DC, and in seven weeks - God willing and the creek don't rise - Anette and I will be together in Tanzania. My CAS colleagues, who are also some of my closest friends out here, had a BBQ for me up in Tilden Park yesterday. It was perfect California day, 75 and sunny, and we had an array of platos sabrosos, including Oliver's parrilla mexicana con carne asada, cebollas y tortillas, Leah's cilantro mint cole slaw and grilled eggplant and zucchini, and Elisabeth's authentic Norwegian "kransekake." Leah also gifted me with a half a dozen water filters that proved their mettle on the CAS Tanzania trip last summer. The Halpern, Martinez and Crawford clans brought their kids, who delighted in throwing the frisbee into the poison oak again and again. Bill showed up on his bike in the late afternoon, having already ridden 100 miles up Mt. Diablo and back (he biked across the country before becoming a teacher). We lingered until the last slanting rays of sun lit up the golden hills and transformed the bark of the majestic redwoods to their true color.

Hello again

So it appears I may have more than just a handful of readers - olé! Several of my students recently asked why I haven't posted to my blog lately. Well, let's see, there was Nate and Amanda's North Carolina wedding, the CAS Olympics, mucho flamenco, una noche en San Francisco con amigos, etc. All of these are great topics to write about, but I guess I've just been overwhelmed with end-of-year stuff at work, and therefore not inspired to write. The only point of this post is to say that I've just added a hit counter to this page so I can keep track of how many visitors I have. The more faithfully I post, the more readers? Vamos a ver.

Sublimity and Synchronicity

Why was today so sublime? Well, it was one of those incredibly busy days that comes along every once in a while where everything is spontaneous, creative, positive and productive. It's all about flow - like a great guitar solo, except your words are the notes and your feet are the fingers as you transition seamlessly from conversation to conversation, event to event, fret to fret. It's the feeling of being up in front of a classroom of students - your students - and knowing you're on. It's playing Hold 'em at lunch with the CAS Poker Club, founded by yours truly and some young gambling enthusiasts on the soph retreat at the Marin Headlands two months ago. It's hanging out with DeAndre after school, como siempre, and finally doing the Big Backpack Organization. We bought a dozen folders, went to an Italian deli, then sat in the sunshine and cleaned out his backpack, putting papers that had been missing for months into their newly titled homes.

Afterwards I went to my flamenco lesson, and we worked on Alegrias, and then David told me about discovering the Bay Area flamenco scene in the late 60s, which at that time had already been around for half a century at least. How did he know? One of his teachers, a Mexican musician who emigrated to SF in the 1930s, said that when he arrived during the Depression there was flamenco all over the Bay Area, and that it had been there for a long time. Increible!! What a privilege to have begun this journey in Sevilla five years ago, and to now be connected by this amazing music to such a uniquely creative and pasionate part of the world. Ole! Viva la Bahia! Viva el duende! Viva hyphy! Que vivan todas mis relaciones.

Oh yeah, and speaking of all my relations - why was today so synchronous? Olivia graduated from Columbia with a Master's in Historic Preservation!!! Wish I could have been there, but Mom, Dad, and Granny represented in NYC for me. She and I are just finishing as DeAndre is just starting to formulate his ideas about college, y todos estamos unidos. Cosmic circles. After my flamenco lesson I drove to the house of one of my freshmen to pick up a car-full of food for our daylong retreat tomorrow in Tilden Park. Memories of bulk shopping at Cosco for the soph retreat, cramming the back of the Subaru wagon, unloading it all into my fridge, then loading it all into the car again the next morning. Memories of waking up at 5:30am to transport more mountains of food last spring for our MexEx brunch fundraiser. What an unbelievable two years in Berkeley it has been!

Whole Earth?

Caught a ride to Davis last night to see a couple of bands perform at the annual Whole Earth Festival. On the way, we stopped at the quintessential Berkeley co-op, The Cheesboard, and listened to a great jazz trio (who always perform in the store) as we stood in line waiting for our garlic pesto choclo cilantro pizza.

I always enjoy going to Davis because it connects me with rural California, which is an amazingly short distance in any direction from the Bay Area metropolis. Nick worked his usual shift at Little Prague, 3pm til 3am, but I woke up when he came home at 4:30 and we talked for a while about our respective stations in life. I told him how after two and a half years of public school teaching a missing piece of my humanity has been restored - namely, the non-white piece. However, even though I've become a more understanding white person, and learned how to be an ally to non-whites, I am increasingly despondent about the fact that I am at the absolute top of the social ladder as a straight white male. This may sound like a conradiction, but I feel like I'm part of a woefully disconnected minority of people who are out of touch and out step with the rest of the peoples of the world. Straight white males are like overstretched empires and kings gone mad with greed, we sit alone on the throne in an empty castle while the rest of the world laughs (at us) and enjoys a life we're not capable of knowing. Maybe this is the source of my desire to learn other languages, travel, and be a part of other cultures. Maybe not. Probably a mix of reasons. Anyway, we agreed that the next step is to read Tom Wolfe's Bonfire of the Vanities (recommended by Olivia when I explained to her my dilemma).

Now then, this realization doesn't mean I'm going to go around carrying the burden of white guilt. On the contrary, I'm going to continue being me and being open to all people I meet. Case in point: I took Amtrak back from Davis today and then got on the bus in Berkeley to go up University Ave to my apartment. After one stop, a man sat down next to me, and of course, I ignored him. Then he suddenly asked me how to get to campus, and if the bus would stop there, and it became apparent that he was a stranger in my town. I soon found out he had just arrived from India at 1am in the morning, and was in the USA for his very first time. As soon as he told me this, I grabbed his hand, shook heartily, and said, "Welcome to America!"
Keep in mind that ust a few weeks ago I invited a panel of immigrant students at Berkeley High to talk to my class, and they said they were miserable here, and that no one had ever given them a proper welcome, as they would have naturally done for any newcomer to their native communities.

The Indian man - whose name I asked but did not properly understand nor can remember - and I continued talking, and I told him a bit about Berkeley's political history. We got off at Telegraph Avenue and I walked him up to the student center. We shook hands again and he went off to meet his Indian friend, also a PhD student studying here for the summer. Small world, or whole earth?

Ravi & Anoushka Shankar

Anoushka played the first set alone and she was mesmerizing, swaying back and forth as her hands moved ever more quickly along the enormous fretboard. Fascinating as it was, I must admit that in my first live encounter, I found classical Indian music somewhat unaccessible. It was repetitive yet hard to follow. I got lost. I got bored. Everyone was so still. By the end of the evening, however, I was completely entranced, as the music finally began to sound familiar and the complicated rhythms began to fit together in my head.

Ravi came out for the second set assisted by one of his students, and he explained that he has to sit on a low wooden platform because he can no longer sit cross-legged on the floor after his bout with a virus that nearly killed him six months ago. In his words, he said he was "going, going," but his wife and family took such good care of him that he recovered. He is 87, and he looked so frail; his hands shook as he began playing, and many of the notes were inaccurate. As the hour went by, though, he warmed up - as if impelled by the amazing tabla player from Calcutta, with whom he had a seamless connection - and he regained much of his old vigor and virtuosity. His hands began to dance more quickly and powerfully up and down the neck of his sitar, and suddenly he was playing the most difficult runs without any sign of effort. He and Anoushka traded solos, mimicking each other and creating new conversations, calling and responding, as they built a thirty-minute raga to an unbelievable crescendo. The tabla player soloed like a madman for a good two minutes straight, and immediately upon finishing, he responded to the thunderous applause by simply pressing his hands together in prayer and touching them to his forehead. What a wonderful touch of humility - a requirement for any aspiring musician.

At the end of the show all the performers bowed to touch Ravi's feet before hugging him, and as they led him off stage, it was impossible to think that just minutes before he had been the source of all that sound! Now he was just a frail old man smiling and waving to the crowd.

Salif Keita

DeAndre and I went to see Salif Keita at Cal tonight, and it was without a doubt one of most moving, energetic, beautiful, and profound performances of live music I've ever seen. The layers of sound and rhythm from the nine musicians accompanyng him onstage were mesmerizing...kind of like Smashing Pumpkins meets Baba Maal. Yeah, that's right, Salif's music is so universal that it encompasses everything from grunge to hyphy to gospel and more. His regal, humble presence on stage, the brilliant and flowing clothing, the incredible range of his voice from guttural to operatic to flamenco, it all serves to put a spell on you.

Of course, everyone was dancing in the aisles, but the most amazing moment of the show was halfway through when the beats were heavy and the crowd was in a frenzy; all at once everyone left the stage, and Salif came back on, sat down, and began quietly playing a hollow-bodied jazz guitar. He sang two melodic, prayer-like songs, and his voice alone filled the cavernous auditorium with as much energy as when the entire band had been playing.

Then the band came back on and it was nonstop until the end. The kora player shredded like Jimi Hendrix, sliding across the stage on his back, playing upside down and behind his back to the delight of the crowd. Next several women jumped up onstage and began dancing in step with the drummers, and finally, Salif invited more people up on stage, and what transpired was a unique mix of Berkeley Rapture and African Radiance. A dreadlocked Berzerkleyian had brought his sax just for the occasion, and he got up on stage and started soloing to the band's delight. More and more women flaunted their African styles - many were African, many were RPCVs. The whole stage was filled with people dancing, and the music just kept on...

And to put the perfect touch on the experience, DeAndre was able to meet Salif after the show and get a cd signed personally!

Top Ten Movies

OK, since I did books, I gotta do movies. All lists subject to change at any time...

1. Slam
2. Crouching Tiger
3. Life is Beautiful
4. Brokeback Mountain
5. Babette's Feast
6. Fanny and Alexander
7. Some Like it Hot
8. Grapes of Wrath
9. Hable con Ella
10. El Norte

English vs. Spanish

To my surprise and delight, The Wind in the Willows was on Masterpiece Theater tonight. The actors were quite good and the story true to the original, but the truth is that nothing can compare to the book itself. The intricacies of language and the detail of the written word are among life's greatest pleasures, which is why I'm so enamored of the blog as a vehicle of expression. I've been wondering recently why I chose not to major in English, Am Lit or Brit Lit, and then I remembered...I have never really liked school!

I love learning, but the confines of classrooms and stylistic conventions, the toils of essay-writing and my penchant for procrastination always seemed to dampen my creativity. In fact, I think the only reason I'm a halfway decent teacher is because I don't like school. Getting back to the point, though, I remember deciding against English as a major because Emerson taught me to have an original relationship with everything, and from Thoreau I learned that the best books teach me, better than to read, to put them down and commence living on their hint. I reasoned that I didn't need any one to teach me how to read, interpret, reflect on, and write about books in my own language.

And so I chose Spanish, because I had "studied" it in the classroom for eight years but had minimal comprehension and fluency with the language. Ah, public school - if only my high school Spanish teacher knew what I was doing now! Anyway, Sevilla and Anette made the language come alive for me, and the rest is history. Now it's on to Swahili, but I guess my point is that I will always derive enormous comfort from reading books in English because it feels like home; I will never know another language with the intimacy that I know English.

I've always been given to hyperbole (but it's meaningful - when I say it's the best day of my life, I mean it, and every song and every riff is the greatest ever in the moment I declare it to be!) so I'll sign off tonight with a first draft of my top nine favorite books list (in no particular order). Readers, feel free to share yours...

1. Growth of the Soil - Knut Hamsun
2. Homage to Catalunia - Orwell
3. 100 Years of Solitude - Garcia Marquez
4. Kavalier and Klay - Michael Chabon
5. Moby Dick - Melville
6. Sometimes A Great Notion - Kesey
7. Angry Black White Boy - Adam Mansbach
8. On The Road - Kerouac
9. Grapes of Wrath - Steinbeck
10. The Awakening - Kate Chopin

Burmese Days

The following excerpt from George Orwell's 1934 classic (he served with the Imperial Police in Burma before volunteering in the Spanish Civil War and writing one of my all-time favorite books, Homage to Catalunia) had me in hysterics the first time I read it...maybe it's memories of ordering ALL the Chinese food after swim practice with Julio and Hode - ¿quién sabe? Anyway, I hope you get a laugh out of it, in particular those of you who recognize a little bit of yourselves in U Po Kyin. By the way, I have never found better Chinese take out than in St. Mary's county - represent!

"In the living-room behind the curtain a table was already set out with a huge bowl of rice and dozen plates containing curries, dried prawns and sliced green mangoes. U Po Kyin waddled to the table, sat down with a grunt and at once threw himself upon the food. Ma Kin, his wife, stood behind him and served him. She was a thin woman of five and forty, with a kindly, pale brown, simian face. U Po Kyin took no notice of her while he was eating. With the bowl close to his nose he stuffed the food into himself with swift, greasy fingers, breathing fast. All his meals were swift, passionate, and enormous; they were not so much meals as orgies, debauches of curry and rice..."

First verse

Alright, we'll see what corrections Pries makes, but here are my first bars in a looooong time (maybe since Meridian)

Some call me teacher of Spanish
some people think I'm outlandish
cuz they judge me by the color of my socks

I don't mess with glocks
the only weapons I brandish
is all my love
i even give you my sandwich
cuz I'd rather be empty than full

I teach public school
what you know about me?
I'm the tall white man from suburban DC

I'm your worst enemy
take your head off the desk
I don't let you sleep
so if you came to rest
then you best be steppin'
outta my class
if you ain't here to learn
get the heck outta CAS!

Back in Berkeley

How can I possibly sum up the spirit of this town in a few short paragraphs? I haven't even lived here two years, but it has already made a deep and lasting impression. Returning to Berkeley from a week in New York was like...(insert metaphor). I had a great time seeing all my students again today, and now DeAndre and I have decided to write a song together. Vamos a ver como nos sale. Driving back from his house, I decided to go to that ninth wonder of the world, the Berkeley Bowl, to do my grocery shopping. I'm not gonna lie, I usually go to Safeway, and as I was circling and circling in the tiny overcrowded parking lot, I was reminded why I usually save the Bowl for special occasions. After a long day of work, who wants to spend twenty minutes waiting for parking? But as I contemplated getting upset at the impractically small parking lot, a wave of serenity and understanding came over me, and I realized that the Bowl simply does not bend to the will of Mainstream America, and it exhorts its customers to do the same.

"I'm going to take pride in the fact that it takes me longer to park, because I'm doing it for a cause - this is organic slow food shopping - it's as much for my soul as it is my palate."

And so my eyes feasted upon the endless rows of exotic fruits and dozens of varieties of garden vegetables, and I bought with abandon, and returned to my car happy. As I drove up Parker St., I saw a tall blonde in black shades and a designer outfit who looked like she was heading for the nearest mall, but as she whizzed by me on her skateboard, I could only chuckle to myself and shake my head because Berkeley had upended the tables again. Where else in America - where else on earth does such a mad menagerie of people flaunt their uniqueness with such style? Skaters and mohawks, tattoos and Telegraph, hoodies and dreads, art cars and graffiti, grills and geoscience! I pride myself on the fact that I'm now a part of Berkeley's underground flamenco scene, because I wouldn't be justified in calling myself a true Berzerkleyian if all I did was teach during the day and do lesson plans at night. That being said, I'm blogging again instead of working, but who can blame me? I'm just trying to represent the beauty of the Bay Area in the short time I have left here. Love to all my relations.

What I'm going to miss about the USA...

...is public television! As a public school teacher, I have no life because I'm usually way too exhausted by the stresses of the teaching week to do anything on the weekends. Thank God for public television, which comforts me, entertains me, and keeps me company more than ever now that Anette is back in Norway. I've watched Brother Cadfael at least the past six Saturday nights in a row, and I always try to catch Masterpiece Theater and old Sherlock Holmes episodes during the week or on Sunday nights. But my all-time favorite is Nature, which in addition to being highly educational, will always remind me of curling up on the couch in the study with Olivia on Saturday mornings when we were kids.