bluegrass to blue angels
Newsletter 10.15.2023
Bluegrass Festival is the Bestival!
Well folks it’s that time of year again! Dr. B is sick in bed with her annual seasonal migraine (yes that’s a thing, we googled it) which she gets every October, so I am afraid you are stuck with me this week.
October is quite possibly the best month in San Francisco. To begin with, we finally get summer weather! I’m talking 85 degrees people, which is insane! And no one knows what to wear and no one gets any sleep.
And my garden, confusing as it is weather wise around here, seems to get really excited by our Native American Summer. (Yes that’s right I PC’d Indian Summer. What did you expect? I live in San Francisco). BTW, the official definition of Indian summer is “any spell of warm, quiet, hazy weather that may occur in October or November.” Which is exactly what happens in San Francisco. As opposed to Fogust - what we call our perpetually foggy and totally depressing August.
My favorite event of the whole year kicks off our glorious October. That would be the beloved Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. This is a three day FREE music festival in Golden Gate Park. Loads of incredible musicians, sometimes the fog, sometimes the sun, the backdrop of our gorgeous Monterey Cypress trees and people from all walks of life dancing or sitting and swaying in the grass. There is nothing in the City that more accurately re-creates the Summer of Love than this.
The festival is generously paid for by the Warren Hellman Foundation. The late Warren Hellman was a billionaire investment banker and private equity investor. He studied economics at UC Berkeley (Go Bears! My alma mater - I studied Architecture, though it would appear I should have tried economics instead!). He then got an MBA from Harvard (again, oops, I got an MA in Historic Preservation from NYU). And then he proceeded to make a sh*t ton of money, and developed a big philanthropic heart. Along the way, he discovered a great love of Bluegrass music and became an accomplished banjo player. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass is indeed as the name suggests, Hardly Strictly Bluegrass. The festival started in 2001 and has been almost entirely funded by Mr Hellman who eschewed offers of corporate funding, in an effort to free the music from any corporate influence. Which again aligns the event with the Summer of Love when the Haight-Ashbury was home to Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Quicksilver Messenger Service, all of whom would wander into the park and set up impromptu concerts, without a tinge of Ticketmaster, thank you very much.
Over the years Mom and I have seen many wonderful musicians including but not limited to: our mutual boyfriend Chris Isaak, Randy Newman, Steve Martin, Emmylou Harris (she’s there every year), Lukas Nelson (Woody’s son, a total dreamboat with an incredible voice), Dr. House (yes that’s right, Hugh Laurie), Rosanne Cash (amazing), Cyndi Lauper (cuz these girls just wanna have fun), Rufus Wainwright, Patti Smith (coolest ever!), Hot Tuna Electric, Moonalice and many more. This year I listened to Rufus Wainwright, John Craigie, Dawes, an Australian Rock band called The Church, and ended with The Mighty Poplar.
After the HSB crowd disappears, the party isn’t over. The following Friday, everyone wakes up to a supersonic noise, wondering where Alan Arkin is because, “The Russians are coming, the Russians are coming!”. Until we realize it’s just the Blue Angels practicing. On Friday, they practice over the ocean, which means they go right over my house, which means I can take a seat in the garden and enjoy the show, while also wondering if one or more of those fighter jets is going to land on my roses. Whatever your personal feelings may be toward the military industrial complex, these guys are amazing. And despite the noise, I look forward to their appearance every year. The Blue Angels are a six member team of the US Navy which formed in 1946 and do aerobatic shows all over the country to demonstrate pride and military prowess. They fly F/A-18 Hornets in a tight diamond formation which looks amazing and insane. When they fly low over the Golden Gate Bridge, it’s just pure delight.
I love the juxtaposition of hippies and weed in the park one weekend and the military flying overhead the next. It’s just so San Francisco!
In the humble words of Porky Pig, that’s all folks!
Mom will be back next week just as soon as she can stand to open the curtains and let some light in.
Thanks for reading!
Bisous,
Ginevra Held Esquire et cet era et cet era
addendum: I would like to express my gratitude for the fact that I can go to a music festival in safety and that when I hear fighter jets I know it’s an airshow. This is sadly not the case for many people in many parts of the world.