Tags
2010, baseball, collage, drawing, Francisco, giants, Karthik, m.t., mlb, mtk, ring, San, series, sf, study, world
26 Wednesday Dec 2012
25 Tuesday Dec 2012
Posted in journal entries, North Oakland
I believe I’m a species of animal born to my parents forty-five years ago in what we call Tamil Nadu. I believe our species, which we categorize homo sapiens sapiens, is very much like other animal species that share this organism, our planet – particularly those in our family, mammalia.
However, I also believe we’ve grown in a unique manner from all living things and we have been inventive.
We invented God.
We empowered ourselves above all living things with this great rationalization, and we alone became intelligent beyond our design.
We then spent the last hundred years dismantling our invention. Humankind is responsible for itself.
We began devoting our time to other inventions: sciences, maths, money, power and all manner of feats of engineering. We’ve launched satellites and a space station that gives us a permanent presence in space. We’ve explored the moon and sent robots to Venus and Mars. We have sent deep space probes so far away they are about to leave the heliosphere.
We’ve explored and mapped our planet in great detail. We have conquered many diseases that used to kill us and have now grown to a population of at least seven billion individual human beings. We understand statistics and our species enough to know we will make it to ten billion, unless we experience a cataclysmic event.
We are the only living thing capable of creating such an event.
I believe the era must be called the anthropocene. The Age of the Human.
It is important to do so because it implies a willingness to take responsibility. It makes our legacy as a species even more important because we are now the stewards of this world.
We connect by use of these machines instantaneously all over the world and can exchange ideas and thoughts with unprecedented speed, which implies the ability to make massive, global change in thinking toward similar goals possible. Corporate culture has dominated such mass media.
The Digital Generation is significantly different from human beings who came before them. I’ve written we ought to consider categorizing the digital generation as a new species of human being: homo sapiens digitalis
I am a father and a son and of a transitionary generation between sapiens and digitalis. Having unmade God and seeing how much of an effect we are having on our world, I feel disconnected from society.
I see this age as the anthropocene and long to take greater responsibility for my fellows, but instead, I grow isolated and separate from most because of my beliefs.
Post-Neo-Liberal Isolation is not an illness. It is a state of awareness. From within it, I compose my expressions in an attempt to work through it, not to escape it. It cannot be escaped. Beyond it lies the future of humanity and indeed, of this world.
That is my belief.
Well, at least, that’s my belief today.
22 Saturday Dec 2012
21 Friday Dec 2012
18 Tuesday Dec 2012
Posted by mtk | Filed under flora, North Oakland, photography
10 Monday Dec 2012
Posted in Coastal Cali, fishing, photography
08 Saturday Dec 2012
Posted in Coastal Cali, fishing
08 Saturday Dec 2012
Posted in Coastal Cali, fishing
07 Friday Dec 2012
Posted in music video, SF Bay
I identify with Steve Miller whom wiki describes thus:
“In 1965, when Miller returned from New York, he was disappointed by the state of the Chicago blues scene, so he moved to Texas in hopes of finishing his education at the University of Texas at Austin.
“He was disenchanted with academic politics at the University, so he took a Volkswagen Bus his father had given him and headed to San Francisco. Upon arrival, he used his last $5 to see the Butterfield Blues Band and Jefferson Airplane at the Fillmore Auditorium
“Miller fell in love with the vibrant San Francisco music scene and decided to stay.”
05 Wednesday Dec 2012
Posted in photography, S.F.
05 Wednesday Dec 2012
01 Saturday Dec 2012
Posted in North Oakland, our son, performance
30 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in Coastal Cali, fauna, fishing, music video
30 Friday Nov 2012
Posted by mtk | Filed under Coastal Cali, photography, travel
25 Sunday Nov 2012
Posted in Coastal Cali, fishing
23 Friday Nov 2012
These three pieces of paper fell together on my desk and with just a few nudges of my tweezers ended up looking ike this.
“Hammernegger” – the name of which has a racist tinge to it, also has a weird socio-contextual vibe.
Northern California’s native, black entertainer turned entrepreneur MC Hammer and Southern California’s immigrant Austrian bodybuilder turned actor, turned Governor, side-by-side on printed stock with red, blue and thin yellow stripes.
It’s like nothing and everything. It’s racist and not. It represents California and doesn’t. It’s a totally unique object … I have no idea what it is, except to say it doesn’t exist anymore, cause I am using each of these in different pieces.
file under funny things that happen round the studio while working on collage.
Posted by mtk | Filed under conceptual art
23 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in collage, North Oakland
Tags
genocide, Karthik, m.t., mtk, pilgrims, rob, robbong, stolen, taking, Thanksgiving, Thankstaking, took, United States, us, usa
21 Wednesday Nov 2012
21 Wednesday Nov 2012
19 Monday Nov 2012
19 Monday Nov 2012
Tags
2003, Abbas, actuality, Al, Arab, audible, audio, Christian, Franz, Hadiyeh, history, intifadah, Jew, Karthik, Kraus, Mahklouf, mtk, Palestine, Palestinian, Qawis, Rimon, visit, witness, Ziad
my full interview with Ziad Abbas, quoted above, is the second interview in the clip linked to below:
If you care at all about Palestine, please listen to these stories told to me by Palestinians in Bethlehem and Nazareth, and hear people being illegally taken from their land in East Jerusalem, stopped by the presence of myself and International media, briefly … this was 2003 … what eventually happened?
19 Monday Nov 2012
Posted by mtk | Filed under North Oakland, self portrait
18 Sunday Nov 2012
Posted in artists books, North Oakland
16 Friday Nov 2012
Posted in fiction, Oakland, performance, S.F., short film
Tags
a.p., airport, Balas, Brooks, consuelo, dangle, dj, earle, ferrara, fiction, film, Francisco, inside, James, jason, JFR, Karthik, Kevin, KoKo's, lloyd, Lounge, m.t., manning, mtk, narrative, OAK, oakland, outsider, Raj, Robert, rosencrantz, San, sf, short, tanner, the, Walt
“The Academy and the Government are always the last, the very last, to state the truth.”
– Dr. Robert Brooks
a narrative short fiction about two academics, one an invited guest of the other, who meet in the SF Bay and discuss aspects of the state of the world, briefly, but disagree.
produced and directed by M.T. Karthik
camera/lighting by Jason F. Rosencrantz
edited by MTK (with JFR); written by MTK (with JFR and Lloyd Dangle)
starring: James Earle as Dr. Robert Brooks, MTK as Dr. Raj Balas
and acting as “the students”: Lloyd Dangle, Walt Tanner and A.P. Ferrara
with Chris as the bartender and DJ Consuelo on decks
music: Alma de cera by Abel Duêrê, undercooled by Ryuichi Sakamoto, zigga zigga bite off 3 Feet High and Rising by de la soul, piano track by Vijay Iyer
thanks to OAK airport and KoKo’s Lounge
13 Tuesday Nov 2012
Tags
2012, autumn, avatar, contemporary, Karthik, late november, m.t., m.t. karthik, mtk, now
Posted by mtk | Filed under North Oakland, self portrait
06 Tuesday Nov 2012
Posted in elections
I’ve voted in every election since 1984, eight times for President. I’ve voted for a handful of Senators, and dozens of Representatives, Propositions and candidates for lower office, including judges.
I have voted in Texas, New York and California and once voted absentee from Taiwan – when I cast possibly the most distant vote for Ann Richards for Governor of Texas.
I covered elections for George magazine, Pacifica Radio and local newspapers and went through the Florida Fiasco of 2000 with writers and colleagues in New York City who were also covering the Election.
I covered Bush vs. Kerry for Pacifica and particularly KPFK radio 90.7fm, Los Angeles.
Today, it doesn’t feel good to vote. Not pointless, because the propositions here in California are a strong form of democracy and represent the political will of our State, but basically I feel as though most of the votes I ever cast did nothing to progress our nation on what I consider to be the best path.
At 45, I grow more isolated in my worldview.
Well, off to vote.
My vote:
Yes on Propositions 30, 34, 37, B1
No on Propositions 32, 38, A1
FOR:
Incumbents President Barack Obama and Representative Barbara Lee
Ranked Choices, Oakland City Council District One: 1.Raya, 2.Kalb 3.MacCleay
Rebecca Kaplan, Oakland City Council
Mary London, School Board
Barbara Parker, City Attorney
Rebecca Saltzman, BART Board
05 Monday Nov 2012
Posted in appeals
04 Sunday Nov 2012
Tags
ask, baseball, bolt, Darren, draft, Ford, Francisco, freelance, get, giants, home, jackie, karthikm.t., Mays, mlb, mtk, pinch, play, robinson, rookie, runner, San, series, speed, squeeze, steal, usain, Willie, world
After listening to fans of Usain Bolt talk during the Olympics about using him as a wide receiver or kickoff returner in American Football, it suddenly struck me there may be a better fit for his crossover to commercial US sports:
The San Francisco Giants should hire Usain Bolt to pinch run.
He would never bat, never face a pitch. Why not teach the Jamaican how to position himself, when to run, how to turn the corner and how to slide?
He’d be used in the exact way Bochy used Darren Ford in ’10 and ’11: to manufacture runs in key innings, in late innings and extra-inning games on the road, for our generally run-depleted squad.
Darren Ford’s exploits, which gained him the nickname The Bullet, are well remembered by fans of the current two-time World Series Champion SF Giants.
Most famous was his game-winning run in the 2-1 victory over the Colorado Rockies in September during our run to the division lead in 2010.
“With the game tied 1-1 in the eighth, Mike Fontenot drew a walk. Fontenot runs fine. Ford, however, might be one of the fastest guys on any big league roster. Ford ran for Fontenot and broke for second, and was standing on the bag, when Colorado‘s Ubaldo Jimenez fielded Tim Lincecum‘s quite average sacrifice bunt.” reads this b/r piece on the play.
But in Spring of the following year, Bochy used Ford to do it again.
Usain Bolt might be a very effective pinch runner if he can be taught the mechanics of base-running. Willie Mays stole home 5 times, Jackie Robinson 9 times … how many do you think Bolt could take if he could be put in position? Think squeeze play.
Bay Area Sports Guy hosted a piece on how important base-running is to the SF Giants just before this season started, but anybody who understands baseball and what just happened with the Giants versus the Tigers will get it, so please comment and spread the discourse.
Here’s the man, doin it:
Usain Bolt as solely a pinch runner – a specialist position. Inexpensive, but possibly very effective in tight games, when you have great pitching and defense. Discuss amongst yourselves.
Go Giants!
27 Saturday Oct 2012
Tags
2012, AT&T, Carter, from, from oakland, game, house, Karthik, Lurie, m.t., Marty, mt, mtk, oakland, park, public, series, three, world
ALL YEAR LONG I HAVE HUGE … OK NOT HUGE, BUT ALL KINDS OF LITTLE DIFFERENCES WITH THIS GUY AND YOU KNOW WHAT HE DOES?
He invites me on the radio to talk about it.
and last Saturday he let me wear the Championship Ring from 2010. wow.
Marty Lurie, radio host who joined KNBR early in 2010 after working to cover the A’s, was immediately a lucky element for the Giants. He and I stood exactly where we are in this photo two years before, and bore witness during the run that finally made the Giants World Series Champs in San Francisco. Marty walked in … and we won.
For decades a criminal defense attorney, and at that a New Yorker, Mr. Lurie became a historian of the game of baseball independent of what he does now for KNBR. If anyone must, Marty Lurie must be associated with the cross-country relationship the Giants have that reaches back to the Polo Grounds in New York City.
But by providence and timing, Marty has grown into a unique role with the World Series Champs and is now an important member of the San Francisco Giants team.
Mr. Lurie’s an excellent radio interviewer whose competence is a direct result of his research. I loved watching him at the Public House in Game 5 against the Braves back in 2010. He sat down to score the game and pulled out a yellow legal pad to do it. He’s a baseball nerd trained as a lawyer!
Mr. Lurie’s interviews of baseball players and managers on Talkin’ Baseball, which he’s been conducting season-long for three years now, are a growing chronicle of the game.
So Marty Lurie is an attorney who can discuss both leagues’ histories very effectively. He brought a whole lot of AL contacts over to KNBR the first year and was eager to share with us NLers the value of certain stories from the lesser league.
But slowly over the past three years, he has joined the stewards of the Giants Championships of 2010 and 2012 who, taken collectively, have become arbiters of SF’s first time championship memories. (full disclosure, GBC hopes to be included in that group of stewards)
Marty, I’m saying it here for the first time: You’re the only lawyer I really like.
Thanks for letting me wear the Championship Ring and for doing such a bang-up job behind the mic.
sincerely,
“M.T.”
and, in 2010: “Carter from Oakland”
(just pissed off a whole lot of lawyers I know who think me and them’re “real close”).
26 Friday Oct 2012