The Burlingame Voice

Feeling Jealous of "Menlo Dark"

I had never heard Menlo Park referred to as "Menlo Dark" until an article in today's Chronicle quoted someone calling it that.  But I have heard our own little burg called "Boringame" since 1983.  So the Chron piece about three investors buying the Guild movie theater, doing a "substantial renovation" and reopening it as a live music venue operated by a non-profit just made me green with envy.  Here are a couple of bits of the article

When the theater opens, it will still be called the Guild and will have either the same or similar marquee to announce rock, jazz, country and comedy acts three to five nights a week in an open-floor configuration Drew Dunlevie said.  “It’s a Silicon Valley impetus. We need more culture here,” said Dunlevie. “We are doing this because we are all tired of having to go to the city to see shows.”

The sleepy downtown, which Mueller said has earned the nickname “Menlo Dark,” has never had a stand-alone music venue. The closest it came was in the 1960s when there was live music at Magoo’s Pizza on Santa Cruz Avenue. This is where an Atherton kid named Bobby Weir joined together with a Palo Alto guitar teacher named Jerry Garcia and a recruited bassist named Phil Lesh to first perform as the Warlocks on May 5, 1965, before later becoming the Grateful Dead.

Where else does that sound like?  Yep, Boringame.  And a little historical factoid is that Phil Lesh was living in Burlingame around that time while attending college nearby.  There are a few buildings in B'game that might work for this sort of thing and there are plenty of B'gamers who are also tired of going to the ever-dirtier city to see shows.  We just need the benefactors--and some city leaders with vision and willingness to encourage such a venue to come to be.  With all of the development going on one can hope that 10 or 15 thousand square feet could go for such a spot.

Update, Sunday 9/29:  At least Broadway was alive last night with a solo guitar player at Il Piccolo and council woman Emily Beach playing with some guest performers for her annual BCE charity show.  Sure felt nice to be able to hear music in two places on B'way.  Il Piccolo is planning for Friday and Saturday music to be a regular event!  Here is Rebbesoul playing last night.

Three Thoughts From Altitude

I had a lovely long stay in Tahoe this past week.  It's as good or better than in the winter even for an avid skier like me.  My wife and I hiked, golfed, friends have a boat that they shared and so one.  It's a great part of California.  As I rolled "down the hill" yesterday, three thoughts came to mind:

1.  Somehow a series of little towns and ski areas manage to put on more live music in a week than we see in B'game in a month or more.  It's sort of embarrassing.  I hear talk of "community" all the time in the Bay Area and yet Tahoe manages to quadruple the quality community time with seemingly little effort and great results.

2.  The livability problems in San Francisco are doing serious, probably permanent harm to its reputation as a world-class city.  The Wall Street Journal is one name-brand news source talking about the problems.  For example, this weekend it noted

The website RealtyHop.com dubs San Francisco “the doo-doo capital of the U.S.” They noted that the city’s poop reports almost tripled between 2011 and 2017.  The problem draws attention because the poop increasingly comes not from dogs but from humans.  There are myriad causes at work, no doubt. But there was no “defecation crisis”—a term usually associated with rural India—in the 1930s, even with unemployment at 25%, vagabonds roaming the country, and shantytowns and “Hoovervilles” springing up everywhere. Today’s homeless and the hobos of the Great Depression are different in many ways. 

In California at least, one is struck by the contrast between the fastidious attention paid to the social duty of scooping up and disposing of dog feces, and the rather more paralyzed and guilty reaction to the plague of human feces. The former is treated as a moral imperative among the enlightened—and the thin plastic bags used as the means to this moral end have so far escaped the fate of plastic straws, well on their way to being outlawed as an environmental outrage. Even social-justice warriors don’t consider it their personal duty, however, to tidy up after their fellow human beings on the streets.

For us locals that is hardly news, but what is news is that elsewhere in California (like Tahoe) long time nearby visitors to EssEff have stopped visiting.  We were paired up with a lovely older woman on the golf course who only waited until the second hole to note that she and her husband used to come to SF every month for 40 years for "dinner and a show" or museums and such.  No more.  One wonders how bad it has to get before the laissez-faire mindset gets whacked on the side of the head?

3.  Who's in charge of infrastructure?  It took three hours to drive from Tahoe City (on the North shore) to Berkeley-- about 190 miles.  That's pretty much the usual time without winter weather.  Then it takes more than an hour to go the last 37 miles to Burlingame on a sunny weekend afternoon with the Giants out of town.  Where are the environmentalists decrying the air pollution of thousands of cars idling in traffic?  Where are the transit officials with new ideas?  Where are the housing advocates smart enough to see the cart might be in front of the horse?  Did all of the urban planner decamp for Boise or Spokane?  Just wondering.  

  

Berserkley: Natural Gas and Gasbags

I could create a new Voice category called "Berkeley Insanity" and it would easily merit a dozen posts per year.  Ridiculing Berserkley is so easy that it can get addictive, but I'll just take this one hit and then stop for awhile.  Today's Chronicle front page piece says "Berkeley: City first in U.S. to bar gas lines in home construction".

Berkeley has become the first city in the nation to ban the installation of natural gas lines in new homes.  The City Council on Tuesday night unanimously voted to ban gas from new low-rise residential buildings starting Jan. 1.  The natural gas ordinance, introduced by Councilwoman Kate Harrison, requires all new single-family homes, town homes and small apartment buildings to have electric infrastructure.

California Energy Commission Chairman David Hochschild, a Berkeley resident, also spoke at the meeting and said that 50 cities across the state, including San Francisco, are considering similar action and Berkeley would pave the way for future legislation.

What makes this so stupid is that just last week the big headlines were about PG&E's plans to shut off electricity during high fire danger situations.  Anyone remember the Oakland hills fire?  Anyone think it couldn't happen again?  And to top it all off, the U.S. has been a net exporter of natural gas for more than a year and has driven the price of natural gas down 87% from its peak in 2005.  In the meantime, hardly anyone thinks electricity prices are going anywhere but up.  So much for "affordable housing" from that bastion of East Bay wisdom.  I'm grateful these sorts of ideas don't infect Burlingame too often although we must be vigilant every two years at election time (which is fast approaching again).

Herb Caen: Memorial Day 1949

Herb Caen's column helped introduce me to the Bay Area in 1981.  I loved his daily columns and later his book Baghdad-By-The-Bay from 1949.  Here is a excerpt of Chapter 13 for Memorial Day

You think about things like this today.  About the kids who bought a one-way passage to North Africa and Tinian, Normandy and Attu.  Especially the kids from San Francisco, because you're back and they're not, you were lucky, they weren't--and who knows why it was like that?

You can't help thinking about the guy from the Sunset who stopped a sniper's bullet at Saint Lo, and the paisano from North Beach who cashed in at Guam, and the boy from Pacific Heights whose last C-47 mission over the Hump ended in a question mark.

I was thrilled to read about the C-47 that led the D-Day invasion being found, restored and flown to Normandy for the 75th anniversary.  Check it out here.

Nearly 75 years ago, on June 6, 1944, That’s All, Brother led the main airborne invasion of Normandy. Piloted by Lt. Col John Donalson, the plane led over 800 C-47s that dropped over 13,000 paratroopers into a battle that changed the course of mankind. Our mission is to bring this great airplane back to the skies over Normandy for the commemoration of the 75th anniversary of D-Day.

My Dad flew C-47's during the war and pulled gliders full of paratroopers behind.  Here's remembering all of our vets and the other loved ones who have passed on to the other side.

BNN: Volunteer Appreciation

The many volunteers who helped make last October's Disaster Preparedness drill a success around town were treated to coffee, doughnut holes and reminders of how well Burlingame is doing (compared to many communities) and how much there is still to be done.  The Saturday morning get together at the main fire station featured the chief, the mayor and several BNN leaders celebrating the many neighborhood drills and reminding everyone of additional opportunities like the CERT and ham radio training coming up on June 1st.  It's a word of mouth marketing exercise and some new neighborhood volunteers were in attendance so this year's drill will be even better.

Yours truly was one of three raffle winners of a disaster kit from Earth Shakes which was great.  If you want one too they are found here.  Here's the crowd listening to Mayor Colson.

Spring Brings Fun to B'game

Spring is here and not just going by the calendar.  Flowers are blooming, hummingbirds are humming and pollen is everywhere.  Spring's arrival also heralds more community activities like music, plays and art which we desperately need.  I'll just mention a few that come to mind over the next two weeks.  We will never garner our own section in the Pink Section but it's a start.  Feel free to add a comment with more that you like.

The 33rd annual Silicon Valley Open Studios event returns to Burlingame on May 4th and 5th.  Details of this free event are here that describe the art studio locations in B'game and surrounding areas.  There are three artists participating plus the full Peninsula Museum of Art studios (with 28 artists) at 1777 California Dr.

St. Catherine's annual play is also a lot of fun and this 23rd iteration promises to deliver the same.  It runs May 10-11 and 17-18 at 7:30 pm with Singin' in the Rain as this year's program.  Staying very local, the Burlingame Historical Society's quarterly meeting will be on Tuesday, May 7 at 7 in the Lane Room.  These are always well attended and interesting especially since this meeting will focus on the old Post Office--it's history and some of it potential future.

A great example of entertainment we need more of comes to the Burlingame Womens Club on May 9th when Il Sapore is sponsoring a night of food, wine and Italian opera with Pasquale Esposito.  Given our lack of clubs with space for a larger production, it's great to see the Womens Club be used to assuage the entertainment drought.  You can get tickets here.  One venue that has been quietly ramping up music is the Vinyl Room.  Aside from the salsa and comedy nights, Friday nights (starting early around 6:30 or 7pm) have become a reliable rock 'n roll gig.  The bands are usually local drawing a local crowd that knows them already.  Here is last week's show by Up and to the Right.

Earthquake Warning: 3 Months Without Water

The SF Chronicle is reporting on a USGS study about the impact of a major quake in the Bay Area--something they say is overdue

While nearly 113 years have passed without a major earthquake on the fault from the Peninsula north, the quiet will end. It could happen tomorrow or next week or decades from now. When it does, hundreds of thousands if not millions of people will feel the ground shake like they’ve never felt before.  Based on current understanding of earthquake recurrence, that’s a statistical anomaly, according to a report this month from U.S. Geological Survey scientists.  According to a 1,000-year earthquake history of those fault branches, the chances that not a single site would experience a major temblor in any given 100-year period is about 0.3%, the paper said.

Yep, we are riding on a 0.3% wave of luck.  Burlingame is doing more than most to prepare for this by way of our annual Neighborhood Network disaster drills, supply caches, ham radio courses and the like we discussed here.  The added bit of information from the USGS study is that a major quake on our San Andreas fault would have the probability of causing 3.7 million people to go without water for the following periods of time:

1-3 days has a 60% probability

1 week has a 58% probability

1 month has a 48% probability

3 months with no water has a 30.5% probability

Wow.  It's basically 50/50 that we would have to go a month without running water.  That is one of the reasons I believe we should be strengthening the Hetch Hetchy pipeline, building more reservoirs and limiting further population growth until we have done that.  It is somewhere between sad, ironic and scary that plenty of politicians read the headlines about the IPCC's 100 year climate change model and want immediate action, but this much nearer and more identifiable threat goes unnoticed.  Forewarned is forearmed.  This year's drill is Saturday, October 12th.  Put it on your calendar and if you don't have a group working in your part of B'game, think about volunteering.

Update:  I just got my 33 gallon water barrel with pump and preservatives to last 5 years from our local B'game preparedness experts, Earthshakes.com.  $143 all in and very well worth it.  Here it is

 

Sweating in B'game

The prevailing wisdom is that retail is struggling on the Avenew, on Broadway and elsewhere in town.  Examples include the demise of Books, Inc. and Anthropologie--not exactly Mom and Pop operations that still couldn't cut it here.  But exercise is a booming business in retail areas.  The Comicle touched on this in January as people were thinking about New Year's resolutions and I'm addressing it as bathing suit season approaches.  The Comicle noted

A city retail study in February found that traditional retail growth has slowed but fitness providers and restaurants are still eager to expand. Across the Bay Area, 53 fitness leases were signed in the past three years.  Being near, or even in the same building, as housing and office uses is deliberate. “It’s really about convenience and daily need,” said Weinhaus. “People are coming to us day in and day out.”  Gyms and fitness centers can thrive in upper floors and basements, where traditional retailers might struggle, said Helen Bulwik, a veteran retail consultant and senior partner at the Newport Board Group.  “You can kind of stick a gym anywhere. It’s kind of like Starbucks.”  “We haven’t really been able to find a new location in the city in a long time,” said Frank Napolitano, president of 24 Hour Fitness. “Dense downtown cores tend to have the boutique-type operators. They don’t need as much space.”

Here in B'game we have an ever expanding menu of choices from old school full-service gyms like Primetime on Rollins Rd. or Being Yoga in the B'game Plaza to specialized set-up like Pilates ProWorks on B'way to the very one-on-one approach using a personal trainer such as B-Fit on Park Rd.  I've been a client at B-Fit for two years and can vouch for the one-on-one approach as a great way to get pushed into shape and strength.  In the middle of the spectrum are Basecamp (Dethrone) on California in the old Route 66 building and the newest, Barry's Bootcamp on Howard.  Locals are curious about Barry's after watching a complete renovation of what was just an old Quonset Hut that housed the Bacci Food Center in the 1950's.  I gave Barry's a try and really enjoyed the Red Room where the workout alternates between treadmill and floor/weight/band exercises.  Not so sure about the name in view of the Fifty Shades of Grey reference, but the music and the instructor kept it from being too painful.  The building itself has been completely transformed keeping large skylights and adding showers and a juice bar.  B'gamers have a full range of choices and price points so there really is no excuse for not sweating in Burlingame.  Here's the new Barry's

 

A BART Non-answer

I'm catching up with the January issue of the free San Francisco magazine that magically shows up in the mail every month.  It's often worth a quick read and can venture south of EssEff once in awhile like four years ago when we were deemed Utopia-qualified.  This month has a piece profiling the newly-elected BART board member, Janice Li.  Her claim to fame is as a bicycle advocate.  She also "still thinks it is scary, weird and absurd to be an elected official".   But somehow she has the elected official's non-answer answer down pat as seen here:

Q:  Riders south of San Francisco don't get to vote for BART elected officials, even though there are BART stations there.  Is that a good idea?

A:  There are two sides to the San Mateo problem.  Some people say that the people who live there aren't paying their fair share.  Others say that they are losing out because they have no representation.  I'm not totally sold that BART should even have a voter-elected board.  It's extraordinarily rare.

If you are waiting for the rest of the response, join the club.  I'm not feeling super confident about the future direction of the Caltrain and high-speed rail connections at the intermodal station in Millbrae.  You?

Bad B'game Branding

Here at the Voice we celebrate the good, and call out the bad and the ugly of B'game.  Now that Black Friday is over, let me be the first to hope that NOBODY bought this piece of trash that is for sale on the Avenew.  I won't deign to mention the shop because it doesn't deserve the attention.  If you are a retail enthusiast and happen to go in there, tell them to get their act together and behave like they belong here, not like they are doing now.