Tag Archives: schulman

Why I’m Doing This and Who It’s For – apologies, explanations and a request for readers

15 Thursday May 2014

Posted by in Commentary, etiquette

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Every day or at most every couple of days, I set aside my responsibilities as a father and all my work as an artist and a writer to create the entries on this blog. It costs me time and, arguably, money.

So, recently I’ve wondered why I do it at all. Today, I want to answer that question as an attempt to invite you, dear reader, to read, follow and engage with me.

I do this because I love the Giants and I love to write. I think I have novel ideas about the state of play and the team itself, that are NOT being expressed in the social media realm. I express them on the radio as “M.T.” and on this blog, and in tweets @giantsbaseballc as an attempt to get my two cents in sure, but more, hoping to improve the team and the discourse.

I’ve been a fan of the Giants longer than many of the current fans I read on twitter have been alive. As a 47-year-old, my view is informed by three decades of watching this team, not just the four years since we won our first World Series in SF. I’m no bandwagoner.

Coincidentally, one of my high school friends married into the Magowan family in 1994, so I was lucky to be able to meet Peter and his family and to be a part of the Giants family in a small way, too. I’ll never forget running into Peter Magowan out in front of the park on a gray day in November of 2010. He was just walking on King street toward the parking lot with his brief case in his hand. I looked up and said, “Peter.” (stupidly … I mean I should have said, “Mr. Magowan” .. I was just taken aback ’cause he was standing right in front of me). I’d only met the guy once 15 years earlier, but he stopped, remembered me by name and had a thrilling chat with my son and I about our deliriously exciting World Series win. It felt like we were part of the family.

The same happened in 2012 when SFG productions asked my son and me to participate in the “Together We’re Giant” campaign, following us through the NLCS and World Series games. When they were done editing it, we were amazed to find we were the first people fans hear and see in the critical episode. That was so cool. Our episode even won an Emmy!

So I do this because I want the team to win, but because I believe that can only happen if the fan base is smart, analytical and keeps a high tenor to the discourse. I believe I occasionally make avant-garde analysis in an attempt to push the team and our fans toward a deeper, more nuanced view. I’ll just give you one example fans from 2010 may remember.

In the summer of 2010, when Jeremy Affeldt was blowing starts, I went on a radio and text campaign to praise and push for the employment of Javier Lopez in all of Affeldt’s would be starts until Affeldt could rectify whatever was wrong. I did this loudly, as M.T., and for a time was the only one doing it in early July of that year. I have recordings of the first times I went on KNBR to discuss this.

Mychal Urban picked it up and gave me some air time. The discussion picked up steam … and we all know what’s happened since. The two lefty relievers compliment each other perfectly. Affeldt used the push of Lopez to improve. Instead of competing they worked together. It’s one of the reasons I use a quote from Lopez as this blog’s tagline: “focused on the relentless flow of the positive river.”

Of course, I am not so narcissistic as to believe I changed team chemistry or team management. I do believe however that a lot of fans discussing it may have helped let it seep into staff ideology.

I try to do this kind of thing all year long, to come up with a way we aren’t looking at it or that’s different somehow and push it into the discourse. It’s fun and makes me feel like I am part of the collective will of our team, our fans. I am occasionally provocative and just plain wrong. It’s an inevitability of trying to be avant-garde, to think outside the box. This turns a lot of people off on twitter and elsewhere. But it’s like a prototypical swing-for-the-fences guy … lotsa homers, lotsa strikeouts.

In my opinion, in recent times, the quality of coverage of the Giants has been significantly reduced by the demands of a sportstainment complex that seeks to equate all fans – bandwagoners and old-timers, fans who know little about the game and those with lots of knowledge, the young and the old.

All of this takes place in the social media realm in a very commercially driven way … so diversity of coverage has dropped and reiteration of the same (sometimes banal) points goes on ad nauseum.

The very language of coverage has changed so much that Henry Schulman, whom I admire, has changed his style to suit the social media demands. The beat writer changing good, journalistic, analytical language for petty, social media chit-chat is only one example of something I lament and last year, it got me in trouble.

I went out drinking with some friends who bought too many rounds, more than I usually indulge in. I came home and read one of Schulman’s particularly offensive stretches into what he obviously must do as the beat reporter to keep followers in this new era, and foolishly, I berated him and tweeted that he “only had his job because of the Giants.”

This was misinterpreted by him and others as a critique of his fine work and I paid a price socially (social medially?) for it. People thought I was mean-spirited. IN FACT THAT WAS NOT WHAT I MEANT AT ALL.

What I mean, and I really, really wish Henry would understand this, is that the San Francisco Giants in 2010 saved the SF Chronicle. They were forced to fire and lay off dozens of people. They were going to shutter the paper … close it down.

Then … the Giants went on the epic tear we now celebrate as our first World Series victory in San Francisco. The team saved the paper.

That is what I meant.

I tweeted it, and taken out of context (granted coupled with my criticism of Henry’s work being reduced to inane social media blather), it read all wrong.

I don’t think I owe Henry any more apologies than I have already exchanged with him, but I never got to explain what I meant, that I hate when he is forced to do stupid work to stay “social.” Of course, I appreciate Schulman when he does great work, I have for a decade. I simply meant he and the rest of the workers at his paper are lucky they still have a place to go to work, and it is in large part due to the Championship team that sold papers all summer and autumn of 2010. Their winning ways help to this day.

From the Comcast producers’ ideas of spending so much time covering people’s hats, outfits and behavior in the stands, to the utterly pathetic non-baseball blather of Gary and Larry on KNBR, much of the coverage that seeks to mollify the half-interested under an umbrella of “social-ness” has gotten base and/or way too social, and so it’s often unreadable or unlistenable to me. I enjoy it sometimes of course, but I long for something … else.

So I do this because I want coverage like the kind I produce here: text driven, summative, analytical, long form, which takes critique seriously; instead of the sycophancy of a social media insider’s crowd. I think there is way too much glad-handing and empty critique. The result is that all of the coverage is filled with social media asides, petty complaints about irrelevancies, catty chat, and, increasingly, less baseball analysis and discussion.

As an aside, I do credit Marty Lurie, who joined us only recently – 2010 – and whom at first, I disagreed with considerably more than I do today. He is a true fan of the game and it is a pleasure to talk about it with him … most days 😉 … I hate when you are dismissive of my wilder suggestions, Marty, but I get it, you’re a lawyer.

I wrote this in 2012 about my experiences with Marty Lurie.

So I am writing this for people who agree with me about some of these complaints or attitudes, if you will, and who seek another positive, but honest fan’s perspective. I don’t mean to condescend or to be naive or to offend.

Recently I offended a twitter follower and Giants fan simply by suggesting a statistical response to her single word critique of Bruce Bochy. He pulled a pitcher and she wrote “WHY???”

I replied that the next batter was particularly good against lefties and so management probably was looking to odds. I listed the batting stats in the reply. I was just trying to provide a stat that might explain the skipper’s actions.

What I received in return for this was vitriol and accusations that I was condescending to her. It was totally uncalled for and very representative of what I hear on the radio more and more, and read on twitter, FB and elsewhere. It’s over-emotional, with way too much “homerism” and often devoid of perspective.

I know for a fact I’ve been a fan of the team longer than this particular person has been alive. In fact, I suppose I am on twitter just so I can find some other way to relate to younger people.

But I was just trying to contribute, to take the conversation to another level. I asked her why she had me on blast … and got a loud, defensive reaction. We unfollowed each other promptly afterward. I don’t think I need to apologize, but I will here, since you know who you are. I hope we can re-follow one another someday and this explanation of my somewhat eccentric methods helps to explain my approach.

I just don’t like the way the new media is affecting coverage of the game. I’m old school, I guess. The beauty of a blog is that I can do whatever I want here. … so I have been.

But it takes a lot of time, and unlike Henry, Kruk, Kuip, Dave, Jon, Alex, Baggs, Marty, Haft, BASG, Brisbee or the others I enjoy, I’m not being paid for my efforts. That’s not a plug, just a fact … I don’t seek to make money from this blog … I seek to be taken seriously as an analytical voice in the Giants community. It’d be nice to be invited to contribute.

I am disappointed in much of what I read and hear and see, so I want a place were I can write and re-read the season with analysis that’s leaner and more focused on the overall trending of the team. My own view.

Here I must say guys like Henry, Kruk, Kuip, Dave, Jon, Alex, Baggs, Marty, Haft, BASG and Brisbee are all good at a lot of things. That’s why I read and listen and have read and listened to them all so often, but the overall language, in general, is changing in a way that doesn’t make it enjoyable to a guy like me.

I know there are fans out there who, like me, think of the players as numbers and positions more than personalities; who like to indulge in aggressively calculated second-guessing and deeper analysis of management decision-making; who like to READ longer sentences, more poetic and prosaic approaches to the game itself.

If so, that’s who this blog is for.

I really hope you will join me, but if not, that you will pass this address on to someone else who might. It would be comforting to know there are at least a few out there who like looking at the game for the game it is, talking positively about opponents when they make good plays or perform well; admiring the state of play; and being capable of critique while supporting the Giants as fans and analysts.

Maybe this is all just a long-winded way of saying I don’t think my stuff is working the way everybody else’s is. But I think I am also saying, I don’t really want or expect it to. I’m not a kid-journalist trying to get a job. I’ve already had careers as a sports journalist, a news correspondent, a published author, a collected artist. I’m in mid-career. This is a labor of love for me to try to get back something I miss. If you miss it too, please join me.

Best,

MTK

The Kingfish Pub and Cafe is an Oakland Landmark Building

08 Wednesday Feb 2012

Posted by in North Oakland

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I attended my first City of Oakland public meeting Monday, February 6th, to hear appeals by proprietors and regulars of The Kingfish Pub and Cafe seeking Landmark status before the Landmarks Preservation Advisory Board.

Here’s the agenda, and this piece in Oakland North covers the meeting fairly well.

In what can only be described as rare for an Oakland story about a dive, The San Francisco Chronicle actually did a cover piece on the place and this attempt to achieve Landmark status back in October  (Which was amended by a piece on C-1 of The Chron, by same author, February 12).

This discussion yields an opportunity to address local art, architecture and gentrification, and historical and archival significance of the culture of North Oakland.

We are a decade deep into the digital generation and there are new, complicated reasons to carefully consider how we archive the past. Things have long begun to look more the same and with less character. Huge mega stores and strip malls replace local businesses, and much of what has existed has been erased and destroyed casually because of a lack of concern for the vernacular value of place.

The Landmarks Board has little power in the face of the Planning Commission or the City Council, which are dominated by lobbyists, mostly for vested developers’ interests, but the Landmarks Board exists for a reason and it is imperative we sharply define exactly how much power regular people have to protest rampant development solely for personal profit.

There are serious questions as to whether our City government is sophisticated enough to appreciate and protect what constitutes a Landmark in a specific neighborhood. Though, in fairness, this cannot be said of Valerie Garry, Vice-Chair of the Landmarks Board, who is a preservationist and showed architectural, artistic and cultural sensitivity to the petitioners’ request.

The Board as a whole heard the petitioners, were thoughtful faced by so many in the gallery, and yielded time for public comment, asking relevant questions.

Board Members Daniel Schulman and John Goines III were particularly vocal,  and both voted against the upgrade of the validation request. Indeed both seemed moved, but cynical.

Goines was like a reluctant father trying to help supporters of the pub to get over losing it. Schulman declared he had been to the pub over the years, and recently as well, but argued huffily that a stronger case could be made for The White Horse in the neighborhood – the voice of political reason breaking the hearts of pub regulars. This led to a discussion about the matter and many great, old Oakland bars were brought up.

Staff reminded Schulman that The White Horse, Geo Kayes and others mentioned are storefronts in a building of another purpose, and not a free-standing, crazy-gorgeous, little wooden building built over decades.

It was inarguable that The Kingfish was in the company of all of the very old bars the Board discussed, but that among them all, the Kingfish, as a structure, is wholly unique.

Listening to these two gentlemen try to let folks down easy was one of the things that makes this discussion interesting to me: the suggestion that the petitioners are idealists asking for the moon from a Landmark Board Member who knows political reality.

I don’t know any of the Board Members, but I’ve thought deeply about the matter and inspected the Kingfish’s structure. I have interviewed regulars, owners and new customers and interacted with its extremely diverse clientele. A broad age and race demographic frequents the establishment – many of whom I know to be local residents.

In response to a direct request from the Chair of the Landmarks Board, Anna Naruta, for more oral histories on the Kingfish, I am beginning with this blog entry.

Many new residents of North Oakland are younger, wealthier and work in San Francisco. Some new homeowners are the product of the very last and most successful of the “house-flippers”.

These new owners join a flood of new renters from San Francisco and elsewhere. Rents are astronomically high. It’s hard to get a reasonable rent and dozens of high-rent apartments built during the fantasy boom stand empty, unrented. Greed has governed decision-making far more than culture.

Condos on the spot are economically and culturally unnecessary in this neighborhood and far more so if it requires removing the Kingfish, which is a remarkable structure filled with collage art and made from materials culturally syncretic to vernacular building in the area in the early 1900’s.

The first thing I told the Landmarks Board was that I am not a regular of the Kingfish Pub and Cafe , nor a friend of the owner/management petitioners. I stood before them as a local resident and urged the board to vote unanimously on behalf of the petitioners for Landmark eligibility status, because The Kingfish is a totally unique structure and a living collage of materials.

Management and regulars related that the Kingfish was begun as a bait shop in the early 1920’s, when it was built by a single individual from vernacular materials contemporary to its era, mostly wood planks.

Its location is excellent for fisherfolk because of very easy access to roads leading to many different parts of the Delta from Telegraph and Claremont. But also, for decades the Temescal Creek ran through here – until it was aquaducted so it now runs under here – and people fished it, too. The Kingfish Bait Shop must’ve been the hub for fisherfolk here.

It became popular and grew into a pub and restaurant in the 1930’s, and by the 1950’s had at least two generations of fathers, sons, mothers and daughters that had spent time buying bait, and then eventually sandwiches and beer, in what had grown into the ramshackle form it still takes.

My son and I fish. It’s clear we can get to many different fishing spots in the Bay easily from here. We notice less parents fishing these days. As computer games, digital culture and home entertainment dominate our society, less parents and children learn to fish and about the management of water-dwelling life. Less families spend time near the water.

The Kingfish is attached to a long vernacular history of people who cherish fishing here, leading up to ourselves. As a pub, because of this history, the ‘Fish attracts contemporary fisherfolk who maintain vernacular knowledge of climate, tides and environmental quality. It collects locals of a fading culture.

In the 1950’s and on into the 1970’s a second unique clientele began enjoying the ‘Fish. The pub lay just beyond the one-mile dry radius from the University of California. The Kingfish and many other local pubs became a hangout for college-aged students and, in the Kingfish Pub’s case, particularly for student athletes.

Cal players, coaches and managers as well as those from professional teams in the area, like the A’s, have long made the Kingfish a center of sports talk and culture. Its low-key, egalitarian atmosphere allows the most well-known or empowered athlete or manager to be able to co-mingle with younger athletes and students without the formalism of civic space.

The walls speak to years of this kind of activity, as sports memorabilia applied throughout the establishment exhibit the significance of The Kingfish as a Sportsperson’s Place. It’s clear that as with local fishing lore, a second, vernacular history is collected and archived by regulars of the ‘Fish, that of local sports.

The materials used and indeed the very “look” of the place are what attract me to this argument about its status as a Landmark of North Oakland. Many features of the Kingfish conjoin to demand consideration as cultural artifact of the region it inhabits, with powerful archival elements, protected solely by the managers and regulars of the pub – the petitioners.

The uniqueness of the application of the sports memorabilia is that while they are affixed in a seemingly uncurated and random manner, each comes with a story, and often regulars relate stories of how they came to be where they are on the walls. In fact, while some are quite valuable I am sure, no one would ever remove or move any of them.

Secondly, the Kingfish lets in very little light and has a low wooden ceiling. These are almost perfect conditions for archiving the materials in question! Through an oddity of its vernacular design, the culturally sensitive material affixed to the walls cannot be removed and are perfectly preserved over decades. Philosophically, from an arts and architecture standpoint, there is much to be considered here.

Representatives of the owner/developer are objecting to Landmark status and have claimed a vested interest and state-driven right to develop the land; that they had plans to do so and had those plans approved in 2007. Thus, in reality, what the Landmarks Board would have to do to support the petitioners would be relatively extreme.

The fact is, the developer’s plan was made in another universe – exactly at the peak of speculation in 2007.  The immense and global crash that has occurred since 2008 still dominates the economic environment. No numbers generated for projects then could possibly make sense now.

The Kingfish has a diverse clientele in age and cultural background, attracting new generation residents like myself and 30- and 40-year customers. It feels welcoming while being historically connected – which in my experience is unique.

I told the Board my investigations made me realize lots of local parents and their children go and have gone to the Kingfish over decades, and lead me to approve of my son dropping in to the Kingfish when he turns 21, if the bar still stands in what would be its 99th year.

As an artist living in North Oakland electing not to own a car, and traveling weekly by bicycle and on foot between Peralta Elementary (with history to the late 1800’s) where my son has been a student, and the rock ridge for which the neighborhood is named, my son and I observe and photograph changes to public space and discuss them with others.

In these past five years we have documented:

— seismic retrofit of BART

— revivification of Frog Park and the creek pathway

— removal of the eucalyptus trees at the DMV by external interests

— repaving of Claremont to the freeway entrance (likely on behalf of Safeway’s expansion)

— closing of Long’s/CVS, and many older businesses

and the arrival of dozens of new businesses, salons, cafes, restaurants, bars and pubs between 2007 and 2012, including the closure and re-opening of the Kingfish.

The re-opening of the Kingfish by current management was met with enthusiasm locally in this time of revival here. The current petition to maintain the place via Landmark status is an extraordinary result of the most contemporary incarnation of the pub merging with intense cultural connection with its past.