Minnie’s Can-Do club was on Fillmore, at the corner of Wilmot alley where O’Napes and Bluebird had a place. Debbie Chicago lived up on California, around the corner from Dunkin’ Donuts with its SFPD cars outside. Up the street from what was soon to be Ruel’s Kingston Records, where I found the scene that led… Continue reading →

Why someone becomes famous over another is a matter of talent plus circumstances: friends, funding, events, timing, visibility, etc.. there may have been, and I imagine certainly were, more creative or visionary musicians than Beethoven at the time, but a constellation of factors thrust him into the limelight. Once there he becomes an influencer, both… Continue reading →

I went into a starbucks and they were playing “Who’s Lovin’ You” by Smokey Robinson and the Miracles, which was my number one favorite record when I was a kid, and I said so to the girl at checkout and added that it was the B-side of “Shop Around” (the real hit at the time)…. Continue reading →

People growing up in the PRC have certainly benefitted from high levels of education, quality of life, and fairly wide global information access comparable to non-PRC Chinese environments like Hong Kong, Singapore, and Taiwan. So it’s perhaps unfair to be judged along class lines. But along with an inexperience with democratic representation, their cultural upbringing… Continue reading →