The Miraculous in North Beach

For three nights this week, I’ve navigated my clever route on timed-light streets and the Broadway tunnel to get to North Beach the quickest way. Parked in the same secret parking space where I don’t have to pay these damn meters that now require money up to 9:00 pm instead of 6:00 pm. Walked to three different intimate clubs where extraordinary miracles were performed, in company with different combinations of my family.

 

The first was Keys Jazz Bistro where I took my granddaughter Zadie to see the Hogan Brothers. This is a family I’ve known almost 50 years, playing briefly with the parents Maddie and Jim in Gamelan Sekar Jaya. I’ve shared a stage with the eldest son Steve, bass player and beat boxer extraordinaire, had the pianist Colin sub for me at my school and performed with drummer Julian at the Untalent Show part of our Orff Levels training, where he came to do Level I. Steve got Covid the day of this show, so Zadie and I only got to see Colin and Julian with a sub bass player, but their precision, communication, imaginative solos and overall musicality was breathtaking and sublime. 

The second was magician Kevin Blake at the Palace Theater with Zadie, Kerala, Karen and I and that was 90 minutes with our mouths hanging open completely baffled and astounded—“How did he do that?” Simply beyond anybody's (but a fellow magician’s) understanding and he did it all with such humor, grace and obvious pleasure.

 

The third was the Dear San Francisco show with grandson Malik at Club Fugazi, where seven extraordinary circus performers defied any notion of what the athletic, coordinated and graceful human body can do, working together like a jazz band with a complex sequenced choreography where a missed cue didn’t mean a note dropped, but a body. Again, such joyful, warm-hearted energy, sharing their gifts to both astound and uplift us all.

 

Every so often— and very often this past week— I just sit back in amazement at what human beings are capable of. Of course, I actually feel this every day when I play Bach, but also when I go to Ghana and listen to the intricate drumming and witness the exquisite dancing, when I try out, as I did a few months ago, some Balinese gamelan music that requires extraordinary virtuosity alongside complex compositions, whenever I hear an Indian tabla player. Walking back last night past Keys Jazz Bistro, I heard a band I didn’t know and thought about how high the bar is these days. Just to set foot on a stage requires impressive virtuosic technique and the capacity to listen to others and compose on the spot (improvise) that used to be reserved for the genius masters and now just is the bottom line that thousands of musicians whose names we'll never know have accomplished. Go on to Youtube and witness piano players moving up and down the keyboard, be it classical or jazz, like Olympic skaters or gymnasts. And some of them between 6 and 12 years old. It boggles the mind.

 

Then there’s basketball, where Steph and Lebron are far from the only show in town and some of the amazing players come from Slovenia and Serbia and beyond. Really, you can pick any human endeavor and see people doing things that make you feel like you’ve done nothing whatsoever of value in your life and what you thought you were great at is really not that impressive. Not that it’s a contest, but still.

Finally, there’s people like the Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu (R.I.P.), who suffered the extremes of exile and apartheid and came out the other side and joined together to meet and discuss the importance of joy in our lives. (Documented in a book and movie of that title).  

 

My takeaway is simple. Ordinary human beings who follow their passion and work tirelessly to realize it are capable of extraordinary things. Physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. When that passion is in service of life, love and happiness, the world is refreshed. 

 

In light of all this, why do we put up with the constant media coverage of one of our lowest life forms, whose mouth spews nothing but garbage, lies, vitriol and insults and even that barely expressed coherently in anything resembling human language. Why is there always a crowd behind him cheering him on, as if his representation of the worst of our species is something that they need? What’s wrong with these people? What do they get out of it except for the justification of their own sad and sorry lives that they’ve refused to own in service of their higher capabilities? Will somebody please explain this to me? And shame on the media for turning their cameras toward it all instead of showing the couple doing mind-boggling things with Chinese yo-yo’s, the magician pulling the right card out of the air when he throws up the deck, the two spiritual leaders reminding us that suffering and joy walk hand-in-hand and genuine happiness is within our reach. 

While you’re thinking about all of this, take time out of your next San Francisco visit to go to Keys Jazz Bistro, the Palace Theater and Club Fugazi. If you do, I’ll let you know about my secret parking place.