Author: Charles Céleste Hutchins

Supercolliding since 2003

addendum

I don’t know how I could have failed to mention that my father also came to see Tennis Roberts and Polly Moller. He also helped move equipment and helped the folks working for the club move some of their stuff around.

My life

Music

So the two bands I’m in have been in high-intensity rehersal mode. Tennis Roberts was gearing up for it’s first public gig and Polly’s flute band is preparing to go play in Vegas next week. So TR practiced on Wednesday and then played on Thursday. We didn’t do as much publicity as we should have. A woman who likes ED came and another woman who I used to play in a band with and her friend and these two guys that nobody knew. That was our entire audience. The two guys were in the back yelling “Slayer!” whenever ED played, cuz they were mocking his heavy distortion. They were making “satan” heavy metal hand getures. “Rock on!” they yelled. We were mocked by our sole “stranger” audience members. Christi was also there running sound and Polly was our opening act.
One of the two guys looked really familiar, so I wanted to talk to him after Polly said she didn’t know him, but he and his friend left before our set was over. Christi later identified him as Amy X Neuburg’s husband. Maybe he remebers meeting me at the Other Minds festival? Maybe he just saw us listed on the Transbay Calendar?
Yeah, so it would have taken 35 people to break even and as we fell a bit short of that, we owed the club some money. the people working there liked us though and said next time we could just split the door 50/50 so we wouldn’t owe them if we had attendance. It turns out that another Matthew Sperry memorial concert was being held at the same time, featuring Pauline Oliveros. And then at the last minute, Tom Waits decided to play. So all the New Music types, except those two guys, were prolly across town watching Tom Waits.
Since I’m about to move, that was probably Tennis Roberts’ last gig as a quartet, unless we suddenly get a call in the next couple of days. The band wants to stay together as a trio. They’re concerned about rehersal space, but Mitch’s bathroom is more than big enough to fit a trio. Instead of being a “garage band . . ..” Also, a bathroom would give experience playing in echo-y noisy enviroments and high humidity. If we rehersed in the bathroom, we’d have been better prepared for being on the tiny stage at 21 Grand.
In other news, the Fender Rhodes works now. I tuned it tonight.

Moving

So I’m putting things in boxes and stuff. I just faxed a lease application to CT. Tommorrow, I’ll overnight the rent and deposit. I’m a bit concerned about signing away a lot of money and two years on a place that I’ve never seen. The lease agreement is insanely restrictive. Don’t sneeze in the hallway. Well, not really, but close. I’m probably not allowed to modify the heater to run on biodiesel, but as it’s not specifically outlawed (unlike, say, shaking rugs out of windows), I’m sure it’s fine.
Tiffany moved out today. Her spot is empty. She’s gone forever. sniff. It’s very very empty seeming downstairs with everything packed out and Tiffany gone. It’s lonely.

125 People

Approximately 125 people will come over to my house tomorrow. Actually, today. That’s a lot of people. We failed to get a band or even a string quartet, but we did get food, wine, beer, soda pop and chairs. Nothing to listen to, but something to sit on. I’m kind of chagrined at the lack of live music. We have a todo list for tomorrow:

  • get chairs
  • flowers
  • ice
  • put tuba in storage
  • pick up food
  • buy a nice shirt
  • get grandpa from the airport
  • pick up the keg
  • clean out ice bucket
  • get ice
  • clean catbox
  • close closet doors
  • mail rent check to CT

I can’t understand why the divorce rate is so high. It’s time for bed.

Costs of Car ownership

What they didn’t tell you in Drivers Ed

the actual cost of ownership is, of course, exceedingly high. you have to
buy gas, pay bridge toll, pay insurance, waste years of your life in
transit and stuck in traffic, while making your life shorter breathing the
extremely nasty diesel fumes which contain large amounts of particulate
matter and dioxin, while your limbs fall asleep and your mind is warped by
clear channel radio and bill boards along the ugly and polluting freeways,
which run through poor neighborhoods, poisoning the residents and also
poisoning the central valley, where the smog eventually blows, causing
astronomically high asthma rates and causing toxic pollution to gather on
the crops growing there and thus also poison our food supply, whether
organically grown or not. Biodiesel is a bit better, but not 100% and
meanwhile your car is still using up oil, still made of plastic, still
kicking up tiny rubber particles from your tires, still causing gigantic
tire disposal problems and lots and lots of really nasty air pollution
from tire disposal sites that caught fire in CA three years ago and are
still burning and it’s extremely likely that you and I both have been
transported by at least a few of the tires on fire out there and all of
these costs are hidden, but you pay later when your life is shortened and
your quality of life is diminished and people you like get cancer and die
or get killed when SUVs roll over on them or are hit by pickup trucks
while crossing the street and thus they never play bass again. and when
outcomes of decisions are statistically predictable, it shoudl not be
called an accident when a city delays putting in a traffic light
(expensive and paid for by taxes not on gasoline) and then somebody gets
killed crossing the street, that’s not an accident. When the auto
industry knows that making cars that can comfortably sail along at 80
miles and hour will lead to more speeding, more traffic fatalities, and
more gas usage and polltuon, causing higher asthma rates and cancer, these
deaths and illnesses are not accidents. When gigantic speeding cars
require huige amounts of fuel and we launch agressive wars in
oil-producing countries and soldiers and civillians get killed, this is
not an accident. When people see this and become angry and start placing
bombs around where we live and work, this is not an accident, but a direct
and predictable consequence of the decisions we make and our society makes
and part of the cost of owning a motor vehicle.

Tennis Roberts and Polly Moller play July 31

Thursday, July 31, 8 pm, $5-10
Polly Moller and Tennis Roberts will be playing (LIVE!) at 21 Grand in
Oakland on Thursday, July 31, 8 pm, tickets $5-10.

21 Grand is located at 449B 23rd St, which you can reach by car or by BART.
Closest BART station is 19th St. Station. More information on how to get
there is at http://www.21grand.org/map.html

Tennis Roberts is an improvisatory/absurdist art band. The band consists of
Chand Bellur on Drums, Celeste Hutchins on Bass, and Mitch Crane and Ed
Kunakemakorn on guitar. ( http://www.tennisroberts.com )

Polly Moller is a performance artist from the San Francisco Bay Area. She
combines avant-garde flute playing with poetry and psychedelic art-rock.
( www.silverwheel.com )

Update

I went to the first night of the SF Electronic Music Festival. It was really groovy. I was going to post a detailed review and then go to all the other nights, but alas. I had a prior engagement the second night. I looked up the third night listings and it included a piece called “Bukkake Clown” for “synthesizer mouth and face.” Ah. So I stayed home. And on the fourth night, sailing went later than planned. such is the nature of sailing. We replaced all the standing rigging on Mitch’s boat. “Standing rigging” means all the steel cables that stay in place and are not changed mid-sail via lever or pulley or any other means. In order to replace all of this rigging, the mast must slowly be lowered. have all the old cables detached, which includes plyering the hell out of some pins, have new cables reattached and then slowly reattach the mast. The mast is long and heavy and several of us were standing on the unbolted side of it, which is like standing downwind or a tree that you’re sawing, except with more cables. It nearly hit Jenny in the head, but disaster was averted. It did not smash down and sink Mitch’s boat or a boat across from Mitch as that slip was vacant.
Then we went on a sunset sail. The wind gets mighty gusty right after the sunsets, creating big waves which splash over you ad then don’t dry out, cuz there’s no sun. Brr.
Then the next day was brunch with nervous family members. Coversation was neutral. The occasion was Christi’s and my engagement, which was only mentioned twice: once during the blessing and the second time in a gag gift from soneone not present. We were given bridal body detergent. “Now eliminates second thoughts!” Some friends were also present. One significant other said she was going to vote for Arriana Huffington. Nevous silence decended. Actually nervous silence decended several times. If I were going to do this over again (next time I get married to Christi . . . ), I’d serve champagne more agressively than the massive amounts of coffee that folks were drinking.
Then band practice, which went well. We’re working on playing five minute long songs instead of two hour long songs so the audience on thursday will feel happier. And then it was already too late for the last night of the SFEMF, so we went to Fogardy’s for dinner.
Today, I went to work with Christi and was unable to get Quicktime Streaming server to stream an mp3. On a mac with a mac client, it refused to stream. arg. Then I saw the Weather Underground movie with Cola and Andra and then we went out to dinner. It’s nice seeing old friends. I wish I had more tie to rekindle friendships before moving away.

You must register to vote! You must vote in the recall election

Ward Connerly’s initiative will also be on the ballot. This guy is the anti-affirmative action guy who is also the UC regent. He is trying to destory all affirmative action in the world, which of course has been disasterous. The UC law school used to be integrated, but last year there were zero African American men in the program. None. He chased them all away. Of course, this looks bad, so he has a solution: quit counting. This initiative ought to be called the Bury our Crimes Initiative. He wants to stop counting race in any government tabulations.

Having a problem with too many black men going to jail? Is it making your justice system look racist? Stop counting! Are police officers stoppiing people for Driving While Black and making your justice system look biased? Stop counting! Are resources being unequally distributed and making your education system look segregated? Stop counting! Is your law school no longer attracting minority candidates because you made them want to aply elsewhere and it’s embarassing? Stop counting!
The NEW Bury our Crimies Initiative can help stop the public from being aware of racial profiling, racism and segregation. It can also make it darn near impossible to fix or redress persistent racial problems! Bring back the good old days and hide the consequences with the Bury our Crimes Initiative!

You must vote against this. Since you’re voting anyway, why not run for governor? It only takes 65 signatures to get on the ballot for the recall election. Anyone who can vote (YOU! If you register!), can run. There is no primary. There is no runoff. Whoever wins, wins. Even if less than 10% of voters approve them. Heck it could be 1%. Whoever gets the most votes, wins. It could be you! Just contact your county registrar of voters for forms.

I will back your campaign!

If you (yes, YOU) run for governor, I personally pledge to help you get signatures to get your name on the ballot. I will help design your website. I will sign any petition to get anyone on the ballot. I encourage you to also sign any petition that you come across. Signing a petition is not an agreement to vote for someone, so you can sign as many petitions as you want, you just have to be registered to vote. Help each other out! Sign your friends’ petitions!
If enlisted in your campaign (I will help out any candidate, even strangers whose platforms I disagree with), I promise to stand in front of fourth street buisinesses with your petition and solicit signatures. All you have to do is be willing to actually go through with it. You must write a blurb for the sample ballot and be willing to have a website and talk to the press or at least issue a statement of some kind.
Seriously.
Really
You should
I’ll help

Register to Vote

Reasons to Register

  1. Vote to Recall/not the recall Gray Davis
  2. Vote in the primaries for your favorite Democrat (note: you must register Democrat to vote for one)
  3. Stop the anti-gay constitutional amendment

How to register

Voter registration forms can be found at the DMV, at the post office, at the library. Next time you buy stamps, why not grab a registration form? Heck, grab a bunch of them and give them to your friends that buy their stamps from their ATM. Or you can Register online! Click that link now! NOW!!
Ok, so you don’t want to get jury duty Who does? On the one hand, if you were on trial, wouldn’t you want smart jurors such as yourself deciding your guilt or innocence? On the other hand, if you throw away your jury summons without opening it, there’s no proof that you ever received it.
Back to the point, even if you don’t care about who governs California and could care less about voting for Kucinich (or whoever), we must stop the anti-gay constitutional amendment.

Stop the Amendment

Certain rightwingers are terrified of Christi and I getting married. They think society will collapse. They want to do anything they can think of to stop us, including ammending the US Constitution. Obviously, Christi and I getting legally married is not going to cause society to collapse. Christi and getting married is a good thing. The proposed amendment is, therefore, a bad thing.

Who Supports it

Bush says there’s no need for an anti-gay ammendment “yet.” Frist initially supported it, but now is echoing Bush. There is a serious danger of it passing.

How to stop it in congress

Ammendments must be sent by congress to the states. That means that it must pass congress. Contact your representatives and tell them that you oppose it. Contact Diane Feinstein. Contact Barbara Boxer. Conact your represenative in the House. Tell them that you support gay marriage and that you oppose the amendment. Tell them also, your address, name and that you are registered to vote. Or if you are not registered tell them that you will register (unless, you can’t because you’re a non-citizen, underage or in jail or on parol for a felony).

How to stop it if it passes congress

Three quarters of states must ratify an amendment for it to be added to the constituion. This can be insurmountable even for good amendments, like the ERA. This means that we can stop it. But we need to be ready to vote it down. We can’t make assumptions, even in “liberal” states like California. An anti-gay marriage bill recently passed in California by more than 60%. Vote turnout was really low then. That means that people like you didn’t vote. The more of us register to vote and show up to vote against this, the less likely it is to pass. You don’t even have to show up. Just apply for an absentee ballot.

How to register

Voter registration forms can be found at the DMV, at the post office, at the library. Next time you buy stamps, why not grab a registration form? Heck, grab a bunch of them and give them to your friends that buy their stamps from their ATM. Or you can Register online! Click that link now! NOW!!

Massachusetts Supreme Court Delays Ruling

Read all about it: http://www.planetout.com/pno/news/article.html?2003/07/16/3.

Synopsis

Some gay couples in Massachusetts sued, demanding the right to get married. The court is about to decide whether or not to shoot them down, do a Vermont-style wimp-out, or be as cool as Canada. The court was expected to issue a ruling today, something which caused me to obsessively hit reload on Google news, but they did not and nobody knows when they will. Probably during this summer. Might be two days from now. Might be two months from now.

Analysis

This is exciting because states have to recognize marriages performed in other states. It also strengthens the legal position of those of us who are eloping to Canada. Clinton, the big jerk, signed something called the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA), which stated that the federal government would not recognize same sex marriages (SSM) performed here or abroad and that states need not recognize SSMs done in other states. DOMA doesn’t hold legal water. At least it shouldn’t. Who can predict the rulings of the supreme court of the US? So right-wing assholes (RWA) are running scared and want to ammend the constitution to outlaw SSMs. Ammend the constituion. It’s not true that the constitution has never been amended to take away rights. It has been, during that wonderful and highly successful (note: irony) social experiment called prohibition. And it was repealed. But the constitution has never been ammended to take away rights from a special class of peple before. This is equivalent to responding to Brown vs. the Borad of Education or Loving vs. Virginia by ammending the constitution to re-legalize discrimination.

Going Negative

Dean, highly popular democrat, is opossed to gay marriage. Why? I dunno. Maybe gay people are icky. Maybe he doesn’t want his daughter marrying one. Maybe we just don’t deserve equal rights. Is he in favor of the proposed amendment? Who knows. His stated position certainly agrees with it. Maybe, like Clinton, intern-banging weasel, he would sign on to placate RWAs.

Stumping

Kucinich, however, supports gay marriage rights. He came in number two in MoveOn.org’s primary poll, which had more participation than is expected in the real primaies of several states. Kucinich could win. He should win. “Anybody but Bush” is possibly a nice slogan, but . . . no, it’s a stupid slogan. There’s nothing good about that idea. It means that it would be a good idea to vote for anyone one micron to the left of Bush. Bloated plutocrats are laughing all the way to the bank at the idea. If you have ideals, you should vote those ideals. If you beleive in equal rights, then you should vote for equal rights. If you think that it’s nice that Christi and I are getting married, then you should not vote for someone who wants to take away our marriage liscence and stomp on it. You should vote for Kucinich.

I would vote for Hillary Clinton

I know. Just yesterday I said that I wouldn’t vote for somebody who thought that s/he should have more rights than me. And I would only vote for a progressive. But those Clintons! They’re charismatic! They make you feel all warm and fuzzy when they sign the Defense of Marriage Act and Welfare Reform and NAFTA and the WTO and when they open large pristine tracts of wilderness for oil exploration and they bomb third world countries based on shaky (and ultimately false) “intelligence” reports. Why is it that the left still loves Bill ater he did all those bad things? Why do we love Hillary? Why would I vote for her? It doesn’t make any sense. Yet, for some reason, I would. So would a lot of people. If the election were held tomorrow and she was running against Bush, surveys show that she would win. Maybe she could have Kucinich as her running mate.

No More Politics

A band that I like, The Disposable Heros of Hiphoprisy, have a song where the refrain is a guy singing, “All I ever think about is music and politics.” This song often gets stuck in my head.

My life

In personal news, um, not much has happened. I had band practice today from 1:00 to 6:30. A couple of songs got cut from our Vegas set list cuz I can’t play them. One of them I spent a couple of hours practicing last night. Bleah. It may have the hardest bassline out of all the songs. I still feel sniffly. I read a book about the history of non-synthetic dyes and paints. All those crayola colors make sense now. Sienna was the name of a color manufactured in Sienna, Italy. Burnt Sienna is that same color after heating. Midnight blue used to be called Prussian blue and was invented by some guy in Prussia. Err, you can see that all of the data absorbed into my thick skull and now I can give detailed histories. Or not. It’s what comes of reading while sick.
There used to be codes for “first mourning” and “second mourning.” All this is myserious to me. People are/were suppossed to refrain from certain activities and wearing certain colors while mourning. This knowledge, tucked among tales about how Britian fought a war to get Belize as a colony so they could use logwood to dye fabrics black, has made me feel defensive. One is probably not suppossed to get married less than year after one’s mother passes on. Vince told me that people sepnd up to 75% of their time trying to justify decisions that they’ve already made. So here is my justification: I’ve wanted to marry Christi for many years. In 1998, we went to Hawaii right before the November election so we could get married there in case the Hawaiian supreme court overturned gay marriage bans. There was an amendment on the ballot that would undo this court action. So it could have been the case that the supreme court would have legalized gay marriage and then, only a few days later, Hawaiians would have amended their constitioun to make it illegal again. But the people who got married in between would be married. So we went to Hawaii and sat on the beach and got a newspaper every day. The supreme court backed down and the amendment passed and the window of opportunity never opened. But if it had, we would already be married now.
Well, now, five years later, we can get married. We will get married. (Although the location might change if Massachusetts’ supreme court rules next tuesday to legalize same sex marriage there. We would be in a better legal position if we get married in a US state.) We’ve waited a long time.
I used to worry, five years ago, what to say to my grandmother. You’re supossed to tell your grandma (obviously) if you get married, but I thought she might not understand. But she died. And my cousin died. And my mom died. and the number of family members to be distressed about this marriage things is constantly declining. I’m digressing.
Now might not be the time to get married and throw a big party. It’s past the time I would have picked. Look, I’m about to leave. There’s a lot of folks I might not see for a long while. It seems like the right thing to do. But I dunno. Hamlet said something about the funeral meats coldly furnishing the wedding banquet, but that was a dead spouse, not a dead parent. If people weren’t so biggotted and stupid, Christi and I could have gotten married in 1998 and my mom could have come to the wedding.

Black dye, Belize, Puritans

Puritans wanted black fabric and were willing to pay for it. But dying things a true black is difficult. The old method was to dye a piece of fabric in many shades , dipping it mutiple times, until it came out black. The it was discovered that logwood, a new world import, made a wonderful back, but it faded unless dyed over indigo. So indigo was imported from south east Asia and logwood came from Central America. For a long time, logwood was illegal in Britian (so was indigo, but that’s another story), because the Spanish had a monopoly on it. But then Britian fought a war with the Spanish and got control of Belize (formerly British Honduras). As part of the peace settlements, all the privateers were to stop hassling Spanish trade, so pirates were out of a job. They went to work in the mangrove forests of Belize harvesting logwood and were paid for their effort in rum. so the puritans were financing all sorts of debauchery and things they found morally wrong (like slavery – many current Belizeans are decended from slaves imported to harvest logwood) in order to get acessories to show their piety. America really does still have puritanical culture.