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NORTHERLY WINDS continue to gust up this morning, although at a reduced and intermittent pattern. Monday the warmup starts, but there may be some clouds in the afternoon. Tuesday and Wednesday additional warming is expected with highs around 90 inland. Cooler temperatures are expected late in the week. (NWS)
STEPHEN DUNLAP (Fort Bragg): 47F under clear skies this Sunday morning on the coast. Clear skies & breezy into the early week, clear skies all week. Although the fog lives to change things when it feels like it so....
JIM SHIELDS:
I have some very sad news. My good friend John Pinches has just passed away. Johnny had been hospitalized for the past week. The family is requesting a bit of time to deal privately with Johnny’s passing. Johnny was a good, good, good man who always cared about and represented the best interests of working people and salt-of-the earth ordinary folks who had no one fighting for them. And he accomplished it all with old-school charm, down-home witty humor, and fierce commitment to finish what he started, even if he didn’t always win. I can say with no fear of contradiction, we won’t see another Johnny Pinches in our lifetimes. John Pinches was 73.
ED NOTE: I knew he wasn’t well, but he was his old self the last time I talked to him, still passionate about and dedicated to the best interests of Mendocino County. What always struck me about Johnny was how generous he was in his opinions, never a bad personal comment about anybody. One would have thought he’d be bitter about the way his “liberal” colleagues cordoned him off on the Board of Supervisors, seldom even granting him the basic courtesy of a second to many of his motions. But if he had a bitter or vindictive bone in his body I never saw any evidence of it. Johnny Pinches was among the best people I’ve had the pleasure and good fortune to know.
ANOTHER REASON WE MISS SUPERVISOR PINCHES
Back in 2013, then-Fourth District Supervisor Dan Gjerde bemoaned a reduction in a state grant for Garden Projects at various county schools from $850k to $100k.
Then-Supervisor John Pinches: “I can’t believe this. You said at one time that this state was giving out money to put gardens in this county at around $850,000 and now it’s down to $100,000?”
Then Supervisor Carre Brown: “It’s just partial funding. It’s the funding that comes to the County and gardens were partially supported by staff as well.”
Pinches: “My point is, I have put in quite a few vegetable gardens in my life, and it only takes a few bucks to put in a big garden. I don’t get this. You have a labor force — the kids in the schools. I don’t see where it takes that much. All of a sudden it takes state money for a school to have a garden plot? I don’t get it.”
Brown: “It funds the garden coordinators and their helpers and the curriculum and so forth.”
Pinches: “That’s what I’m saying. A garden coordinator? I think they should be funding a schoolteacher! And the garden should be put in as an effort between the schoolkids and maybe a couple parents or somebody who knows a little something about plantin’ corn. I don’t get this where all of a sudden we are stymied about putting gardens in our schools because there’s not hundreds of thousands of dollars coming in. I can’t believe we’ve come to that as a society.”
Then-Supervisor Dan Hamburg: “Well, maybe we should have the Gardens project come before the board.”
Brown: “That would be great!”
Pinches: “There’s a lot of good gardens out there.”
Brown: “There’s Ukiah Unified.”
Pinches: “This is really a school district issue. But it just appalls me.”
Hamburg: “Before we get appalled, maybe we should learn more about it.”
Brown: “And about the grant funding.”
Hamburg: “I’ve been pretty impressed with what they’ve done. I mean, they’re not like, you know…They’re very expensive.”
Pinches: “For $850,000?”
Hamburg: “I don’t know. I don’t know about the cost. But…”
Pinches (sarcastically): “Yeah.”
Hamburg: “We could have them come to the board.”
Then-Supervisor John McCowen: “It is a lot more than just putting in a garden. There is a nutritional education component that does go to it. I think it may be very appropriate to have an agenda item to go into the issues that Supervisor Gjerde has raised.”
Brown: “I would like to work with Supervisor Gjerde to bring that forward.”
Pinches: “My point is, We always talk about how there’s not enough money to fund our schools and everything and yet we are spending, like, the state is spending $850,000 in Mendocino County for a few garden projects?”
Hamburg: “The supervisors just said they want an agenda item on it so you can ask all your questions of the people who actually have the information.”
No agenda item was forthcoming.
(Mark Scaramella)
MURDER SEASON HAS BEGUN
On Thursday, May 15, 2025 at approximately 12:50 P.M., a subject in Texas who owns a property in Mendocino County contacted the Sheriff’s Office to report an incident that reportedly occurred at a property she owns on Bell Springs Road.
The property owner received second-hand information earlier in the week about her property worker who was living and working at the remote property in the 68000 block of Bell Springs Road in Piercy (Island Mountain Area).
The property owner learned that her worker was either in trouble or possibly murdered at the property. Nobody involved in this incident was able to reach the adult-male worker and the last known contact with the subject living on the property on Bell Springs Road was approximately May 5, 2025.
The property owner drove for approximately two days from Texas to the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office in Ukiah to report this incident. Sheriff’s Office deputies met with the property owner, who was requesting an escort to the remote property on Bell Springs Road to conduct a welfare check on her worker who she was unable to contact.
Personnel from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office obtained further information from the property owner, who advised that the property is extremely difficult to access and behind multiple locked gates so she agreed to respond and assist deputies in accessing the parcel.
It took multiple hours to respond to the property. Upon arrival, Sheriff’s Office personnel searched the over 100-acre parcel for multiple hours. The property appeared to be utilized for marijuana cultivation and deputies extensively searched the large property. As night-time hours approached, Sheriff’s Office personnel continued searching the area down the hill from the residence.
Upon further searching and investigating the area down the hill from the residence, Sheriff’s Office personnel located apparent human remains. It appeared the human remains were partially concealed with loose debris and foliage in an attempt to hide the male decedent.
Due to the rapidly-approaching darkness conditions, it was decided that numerous Sheriff’s Office personnel would remain overnight at the property while additional resources were requested to assist in the recovery of the remains and conduct further searching of the large property on Friday 05/16/2025.
Investigators and deputies with the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, Search and Rescue personnel from the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office and the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office, and law enforcement personnel from the Humboldt County Sheriff’s Office responded to the property during the early-morning hours of May 16, 2025 to continue searching and recover the human remains.
During recovery efforts, the decedent was determined to be an adult male but positive identification was not possible due to the advanced decomposition and condition of the remains. The remains are consistent with the general description, gender, and ethnicity of the missing property worker, but the decedent has not been positively identified at this point of the investigation.
Due to the circumstances learned during this case and the suspicious nature of the human remains recovered during this incident, this case is being investigated as a homicide and additional information will be released as it becomes available. A post-mortem examination is being scheduled for the human remains recovered during this investigation.
Anyone with information related to this investigation is requested to contact the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office Dispatch Center at 707-463-4086 (option 1). Information can also be provided anonymously by calling the non-emergency tip-line at 707-234-2100.
TWO BACK-TO-BACK HOMICIDES SHAKE NORTHERN CALIFORNIA CANNABIS COUNTRY
Sheriff Kendall: ‘This is the reason we need to deal with these illegal grows.’
by Matt LaFever
Just days apart, two cannabis-related homicides have shaken Northern California’s Emerald Triangle, where authorities discovered a body buried at an unlicensed grow near Island Mountain and responded to a fatal shooting tied to a drug trafficking organization on tribal land.
The first case began on May 15, when a Texas-based property owner contacted the Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office, according to a press release. The woman, who owns land on the 68000 block of Bell Springs Road, a remote area that climbs east from Highway 101 into the Island Mountain region, where Mendocino, Trinity and Humboldt counties converge, told deputies she had received second-hand information suggesting that a worker on her property may be in danger, or possibly dead.
The landowner, who had not been able to reach the adult male worker since May 5, drove from Texas to Ukiah, the Mendocino County seat, over two days to make the report in person. She then accompanied deputies to the remote site, which she described as difficult to access and secured by multiple locked gates.
It took law enforcement several hours to reach and begin searching the 100-acre parcel, which Mendocino County Sheriff Matt Kendall confirmed to SFGATE appeared to be used for marijuana cultivation but was “not any type of licensed [cannabis] grow.”
As night fell, deputies focused their search on a slope below the main residence. There, they found human remains “partially concealed with loose debris and foliage in an attempt to hide the decedent,” according to the Sheriff’s Office.
Due to darkness, the area was secured overnight while additional personnel were summoned. On May 16, investigators and search-and-rescue crews from Mendocino and Humboldt counties returned to process the scene and recover the remains.
The body was determined to be an adult male, though identification was not possible due to what officials described as “advanced decomposition.” The remains are consistent with the gender, ethnicity, and general description of the missing worker, but identity has not yet been confirmed. The death is being investigated as a homicide “based on the circumstances learned during this case and the suspicious nature of the human remains recovered,” the Sheriff’s Office stated.
Just hours earlier, and over 100 miles away by rough mountain roads, a separate homicide unfolded at another illegal grow site, this one located on tribal land in the Hulls Valley area of northeastern Mendocino County. According to Kendall, the site housed “several thousand plants” operated by what he called a “drug trafficking organization.”
The early morning of May 15 brought gunfire to the site. Investigators believe that three individuals were shot, one fatally. Details remain scarce, but Kendall confirmed to SFGATE that the case is also being investigated as a homicide.
With both investigations launched within hours of each other, Kendall said the incidents stretched his already thinly staffed department past its limits. “We’re short on staff at the Sheriff’s Office. When you have two homicides on the same day, we’re stretching ourselves so thin, we’re meeting ourselves coming around a corner,” he said. The two scenes, he added, were roughly “three and a half hours apart by drive time.”
Kendall connected the violence to what he described as the continued collapse of the region’s cannabis economy. “When prices drop,” he said, “we have an uptick in robberies and homicides.”
Crimes like these, buried bodies, crossfire on remote farms, operations run by criminal networks, are why illegal cultivation sites remain a priority for his office. “This is the reason we need to deal with these illegal grows,” Kendall said. “What do you think is gonna happen?”
The Mendocino County Sheriff’s Office is urging anyone with information related to either homicide to contact their dispatch center at 707-463-4086 (option 1) or leave an anonymous tip at 707-234-2100.
(SFGate.com)
UKIAH SHELTER PET OF THE WEEK
Get our yer Blue Suede Shoes! Looking for a new pupper to add to your pack? Look no further than Elvis! This guy is a real ladies’ man, ready to rock ‘n’ roll with you ASAP. With his adorable ears and playful demeanor, he’s sure to win you over in a heartbeat. Elvis is a friendly, adult male who’s curious about everything, especially when it comes to new people. He’s an intelligent pup who loves to explore and sniff out new adventures. He can be a bit shy at first, but give him some attention and he’ll be your BFF in no time. Elvis has a lot of energy and would love an active family who will take him on long walks and playtime in the park.
He’s an excellent companion for anyone who loves the outdoors and exploring new places. Overall, Elvis is a fun-loving, adventurous dog looking for a family to call his own. If you’re ready to rock with this handsome pooch, come meet Elvis today! He can’t wait to start his new life with you. Elvis is a hound mix (because OF COURSE he is!), 2 years old and 57 pounds.
For information about our services, programs, and events, visit: mendoanimalshelter.com
Join us the first Saturday of every month for our Meet The Dogs Adoption Event at the shelter.
For information about adoptions please call 707-467-6453.
Making a difference for homeless pets in Mendocino County, one day at a time!
ANDERSON VALLEY VILLAGE List of Events
ED NOTES: THIS & THAT
IT TOOK GUALALA ten years to get their power poles buried, but they’re buried. Elk, Point Arena, Hopland? Done. Boonville’s been on the burial list for at least thirty years, but our unsightly tangles of poles and wires are still with us.
(Mark Scaramella Notes: I’ve heard unofficially that there’s a chance Boonville’s power lines will be buried as part of the proposed Boonville water/sewer trenching — if one or both of the projects is/are approved. But one of the insiders will have to confirm that.)
COMMENT OF THE DAY: “Eating has always been an intensely political issue: those with money eat, those without starve. With food in abundance, the only thing stopping its fair distribution is the profit motive. This explanation not only helps us understand the regularity of famines, but likewise explains the daily suffering caused by inadequate nutrition amongst the poor, be they in rich, or impoverished societies. It is hardly a new phenomena that global food supplies are largely controlled by a just handful of global corporations; although with ongoing mergers this number are continually concentrating their power to enhance their ability to regulate our diets. These same corporations are usually at the forefront of anti-union activism, and dedicate themselves to ensuring that their workers’ pay and conditions are as low as possible to maximize their shareholders profits. Nevertheless as the self-appointed guardians of most of the world’s food, it is simply not good press if these elites are seen to idly stand by as the working class starve. So when large proportions of people are forced into the dire position that they cannot afford to eat, the big-hearted capitalists of the food industry see it as their obligation (to sustain capitalism) to step forward to lend a hand. This magnanimous benefaction comes in the form of charity; although in many business leaders minds, such actions are seamlessly enmeshed with the generously funded endeavors of their corporate public relations departments. — From “The Politics of Food Banks” by Michael Barker
WHAT BETTER PLACE than lightly populated Mendocino County to at least try to devise an effective, humane strategy for housing the unhoused, especially the derelict part of that population? Let’s start from the premise, and my broken record, that persons unable or unwilling to care for themselves be compelled to shelter, and Mendocino County be responsible for providing that shelter where the temporarily unmoored, miscellaneous incompetents, alcoholics, drug dependent, and plain old bums are required to abide while they reside in Mendocino County on the street and in the bushes along the battered Russian River.
I’VE OFTEN suggested a revival of the old County Farm concept, which was a working farm and not simply a time-out spa, where all the above, especially the habituals among them, were confined for however long it took them to pull themselves together. It they immediately reverted upon release, they were immediately re-sequestered. The Supervisors, preoccupied with their ongoing persecution of Ms. Cubbison, should take the lead in the discussion, and that discussion should involve the judges and, of course, the police.
HOW TO PAY for it, how to confine people who don’t want to be confined, is a matter for local government to figure out, it looks like the new psych wing at the County Jail is going to be the first option.
IT’S NOT LIKE humane, workable options don’t exist. In Eugene, Oregon, a lib bastion much like Mendocino County, nobody is allowed to live on the streets. The Eugene option is a massive church-run shelter or jail, the sole options for persons attempting to live on the streets or in the parks. Nobody is allowed to camp out in front of stores panhandling or otherwise menacing passersby. Simply hauling the habituals to the Mendo County Jail and running them through the hi-ho here you go justice system is expensive and futile. (Our monarchical Superior Court lacks, shall we say, civic spirit, simply processing on through our porous legal system people who should be locked up or placed in locked psych hospitals, most of the latter owned by doctors of the cash and carry type and also a revolving door. Looked at as a whole, we have highly paid people exacerbating the prob while a cadre of other highly paid people make handsome livings off human misery.)
THE ABANDONED but nicely maintained Point Arena Air Force Base would make an ideal County Farm. Inland, there’s plenty of room adjacent to the County Jail, to name one likely site. Simply hassling street people away from Mendocino Village, downtown Ukiah, Willits, and Fort Bragg is futile. And cynical. If there were real alternatives in Mendocino County along the lines of the above, the kind of bums everyone complains about, the aggressive, criminally-oriented ones, would move on to more indulgent jurisdictions, as the savvy town of Fort Bragg has proven by a coordinated, intelligent, efficient strategy that simply doesn’t allow street people to destroy their public spaces. Ukiah does.
ALMOST A THIRD of registered voters believe their gun rights have been so threatened that an armed revolution might be necessary in the next few years, hence Timothy McVeigh, hence the Jan 6th mob. Farleigh Dickinson University surveyed 863 registered voters for the Public Mind poll, which had a margin of error of plus or minus 3.4%. The questions focused on gun control and whether armed revolution would be necessary to protect individual liberties. The survey included the statement: “In the next few years, an armed revolution might be necessary in order to protect our liberties.” 29% of respondents said they agreed, 47% disagreed, 18% said they didn’t agree or disagree, 5% said they were unsure, and 1% refused to respond. Most of those who agreed that armed revolution might be necessary were Republicans. Republicans seemed far more certain that armed revolution was needed, with 44% of those agreeing with the statement identifying as Republicans. 18% of those who agreed were Democrats, and 27% were Independents.
I THINK the Maga types are more counter-revolutionary than revolutionary in that they are devoted to the billionaire class and, scratch one and he’ll reveal that he really looks forward to killing his fellow citizens — liberals and ethnic minorities, especially black people who the Maga-minded see as threatening.
THE GUN NUTS are heavy on fantasy if they think (1) this government would even attempt to confiscate their guns and (2) a fat guy in camo, or a whole bunch of fat guys in camo, could hold off the government if the gubmint did try a gun grab. Pure hysteria but not surprising in the End Times-quality furor out there.
IN 2015, when two convicted murderers broke out of a prison in upstate New York, it kicked off a weeks-long manhunt — and put the prison’s tailor shop supervisor under intense scrutiny. The Emmy-nominated 2018 series Escape at Dannemora depicts the events surrounding the real-life jailbreak committed by inmates Richard Matt and David Sweat, including the involvement of the prison employees who aided and abetted them. Directed by actor-director Ben Stiller (‘Severance’) and created by Brett Johnson (‘Ray Donovan’) and Michael Tolkin (‘The Offer’), the crime series stars Patricia Arquette, Benicio del Toro, and Paul Dano. Arquette won a SAG Award and a Golden Globe for her performance. (Full disclosure. i own four guns, only one I bought, the other three, a pistol, a shotgun and a rifle. I bought a gun after a series of what I thought were viable threats.)
Name: Manuel Gerardo Alvarado
Age: 44 years old the day he disappeared on October 3rd he turned 45.
Disappeared: in Covelo.
Date that went missing: July 22, 2024.
For My Brother Manuel Gerardo Alvarado.
Talking about you is an honor because I love you. Brother, since the day I heard of your disappearance, there is a silence that hurts more than a thousand words. There’s a pain in my chest. I drink coffee thinking that we’re drinking it together, even though coffee doesn’t taste the same anymore. Everyday I’m looking for you in my memories. Since I don’t know where you are, my laugh is no longer the same. I learned to abuse the memories behind you. I’m trying to go slower to wait for you to come back. There are days when I seem to be fine and only a word, a scent, a song, a look is enough to remember you and so my soul cries for missing you. I haven’t stopped talking to you. You know that even though others do not understand me, my love for you makes me honor you talking about you, the great human being you are, the noble, kind, devoted and always joyful person you have been. I talk about you because you are always present in my day to day, because you live in my chest and in my memory. I love you, brother.
ARTISAN CRAFT AND FOOD MARKET, May 31
The Mendocino Producers Guild presents a debut Artisan Craft and Food Market on Saturday May 31 from 11 to 5.
There will be local farmers, arts and crafts, jams and sauces, body products, herbal remedies, plant starts, teas and desserts, leather goods, and so much more, all locally made and sourced.
Come visit our new space at the MPG hall located at: 43401 Highway 101 is located 1.6 miles South of the Laytonville post office on the East side of Highway 101.
Hope to see you there! More info: www.mendocinoproducersguild.org
JOHN JONES (“History and Love of Ukiah”): Humans have lived in the Mendocino County area for over 14,000 years. Specifically, the last Native American people to reside in this area before the arrival of Europeans were the Northern Pomo.
CATCH OF THE DAY: Saturday, May 17, 2025
APOLONIO BARRIGAN-IBARRA, 33, Ukiah. Under influence, probation violation.
LEONARD CAMPBELL JR., 53, Hopland. Indecent exposure, probation violation.
ALFREDO CASTELLANO, 42, Fort Bragg. Domestic abuse, false imprisonment.
JOHN COSTA JR., 38, Willits. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, controlled substance, resisting.
CHRISTOPHER GARCIA, 44, Ukiah. Battery, parole violation.
NATHEN MARTIN, 38, Willits. Under influence.
SAMUEL SANCHEZ, 35, Ukiah. Disorderly conduct-alcohol&drugs, contempt of court. (Frequent flyer.)
VALENCIA SPIKES, 37, Clearlake/Ukiah. DUI.
JORGE TAFOYA, 41, Ukiah. Trespassing, probation revocation, resisting.
LESLIE WILLIAMS, 58, Willits. DUI.
NORM CLOW: Ticket stub from the day it all began for us Clows at 16th & Bryant in 1959. (My sister Janice gave me this when we visited her in The City in December. She has more Giants memorabilia than I could ever imagine.)
HE WHO WOULD BE KING
Imagines Himself
Able to loot the Country
Four ways from Sunday
— Jim Luther
MEMO OF THE AIR: In the penal colonies.
Here’s the recording of last night’s (9pm PDT, 2025-05-16) 7.6-hour-long Memo of the Air: Good Night Radio show on 107.7fm KNYO-LP Fort Bragg (CA) and also, for the first three hours, on KAKX Mendocino, ready for you to re-enjoy in whole or in part: https://tinyurl.com/KNYO-MOTA-0644
Coming shows can feature your own story or dream or poem or essay or kvetch or announcement. Just email it to me. Or send me a link to your writing project and I’ll take it from there and read it on the air.
Besides all that, at https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com you’ll find a fresh batch of dozens of links to not-necessarily radio-useful but worthwhile items I set aside for you while gathering the show together, such as:
The big how and why book. https://myonebeautifulthing.com/2025/05/16/primal-space/
Charged water droplets orbiting a teflon needle in microgravity. https://kottke.org/25/05/astronaut-don-pettits-marvelous-photos-from-space
The Doors – When the Music’s Over. “If you remember the ‘60s you weren’t there.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UeIcjnIEVfE
And all your casino cheating questions answered. We are living in, after all, the Biff’s Casino timeline. (30 min.) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0QWP4IZOu0I
Marco McClean, [email protected], https://MemoOfTheAir.wordpress.com
GIANTS’ WILMER FLORES WALKS IT OFF after battle with A’s Mason Miller
by Susan Slusser
Throughout the afternoon at Oracle Park, all during batting practice, the wind was blowing hard out to center.
Then the game started, the gusts shifted and with the sun glaring off the batter’s eye, the pitchers suddenly had an advantage. The A’s power, which loomed as a potential problem as the flags whipped toward McCovey Cove, was not in evidence. The San Francisco Giants, who’d scored seven or more runs the previous three games, tiptoed through the first nine innings before Wilmer Flores did his RBI thing again in a 1-0 Giants victory, this time with two outs and two strikes.
The A’s made the tactical error of intentionally walking Mike Yastrzemski with first base open to bring up Flores, who entered the day tied with Aaron Judge for the major-league RBI lead. “We were kind of baffled,” reliever Ryan Walker said of the A’s decision to face Flores. “We’ll take Wilmer up with the game on the line any time, that’s a no-brainer.”
Flores was coming off a monster game in which he homered three times and drove in eight runs, and he put together a whale of an at-bat against A’s All-Star closer Mason Miller, a nine-pitch walk that included three two-strike foul balls, two on 103-mph fastballs. He walked on a low 102.2 mph fastball to give the Giants their major-league leading sixth walkoff win.
“Just an incredible at-bat,” manager Bob Melvin said. “For him to take that pitch was vintage Wilmer, even taking the 2-2 slider — yeah, great.”
Some hitters take umbrage when the hitter before them is walked intentionally, even if it’s to set up a force or get the right-right platoon advantage, both the case Saturday, especially with Yastrzemski batting .292 against right-handers.
Flores didn’t give it a second thought. “I’m just ready,” he said.
He’s a cool customer with men in scoring position. His average in such situations this season: .395 with a 1.224 OPS, eye-popping, and his 12 go-ahead RBIs are the most in the majors.
“He has pretty good stuff,” Flores said of Miller. “I was just waiting, hoping to make contact somehow. As the at-bat went longer, I was seeing the fastball a little better, but it’s still just a different fastball. I think I was just lucky to foul it off.”
Flores’ 42 RBIs lead the majors, snapping the tie with the Yankees’ Judge.
Landen Roupp started for San Francisco and put together the longest scoreless outing of his career, going six innings and allowing five hits and two walks, and he was sensational with men on base. With men at the corners and one out in the second, he struck out JJ Bleday on three pitches, finishing him off with a curveball, then he got Nick Kurtz to ground out to second. In the fourth, in the same situation, he got Bleday to pop up and struck out Kurtz looking, one of his five Ks on the evening.
He’s known for his nasty curveball, but it was the sinker, which induced lots of weak contact, that really worked well for Roupp and helped set up the curve well. He also was trying a new pregame routine, easing up his game-day intensity a notch. Usually, Roupp stops talking to his teammates about four hours before he pitches, but Saturday, he had a late lunch with Logan Webb, surprising Webb in the process.
“Webby asked if he could sit with me and I told him no jokingly,” Roupp said. “I’m trying something different. … It definitely felt good not locking in so long before the game. It felt good to chat with some guys when I came in today.”
The Giants only tested A’s starter Luis Severino once: In the third, they loaded the bases with one out, but Severino struck out Jung Hoo Lee and Heliot Ramos, the latter on a check swing. That started a stretch in which Severino retired 11 of the final 12 men he faced. San Francisco went 16 batters without a hit before Tyler Fitzgerald’s soft single leading off the eighth, but he was thrown out trying to steal just as Yastrzemski struck out looking.
There was only one hit that registered over 94 mph, Tyler Soderstrom’s first-inning double at 111.9 mph. Also in that range that inning was Brent Rooker’s scorcher to dead center that Lee tracked down just in front of the wall with a backhand grab.
“It was tougher than you can imagine because it was with the sun right in his face, the ball’s hit 110 miles an hour, and usually that ball ends up going out,” Melvin said. “To be able to get that kind of a jump and catch it in the fashion he did, turn around with sun in his face, it was way harder.”
Roupp clapped from the mound as Lee hauled it in.
“Unbelievable,” he said. “If he doesn’t make that catch, that whole game could be different.”
Giants relievers worked quickly and efficiently — absurdly so. Randy Rodriguez had a 1-2-3 11 pitch inning, Tyler Rogers did the same with just four pitches and Walker with seven. In the 10th, Camilo Doval needed 14 pitches but he had to work around the placed runner at second, and with two outs, he walked hot-hitting Jacob Wilson before striking out Rooker with a slider as the crowd stood and roared.
“He’s been very composed for a good stretch here,” Melvin said of Doval, who is 2-0 with zero runs allowed over his past 17 appearances.
“It just felt like that game was just going to keep going, with the quality of the relievers coming in behind the two starters. It just felt like it was going to take something like that to win the game.”
(sfchronicle.com)
A NEW TYPE OF INVESTOR IS BUYING UP CALIFORNIA WINERIES
by Esther Mobley
A form of investment once rare among California wineries is quietly reshaping the industry.
Private equity firms — notorious for buying up private companies, often with the goal of selling them quickly — have lately accelerated their investments in California wineries, targeting famous Napa Valley estates. The Duckhorn Portfolio and Far Niente Wine Estates have had private equity ownership for several years. Newly backed wineries include Spring Mountain Vineyard and Silver Oak Cellars.
“There’s private equity in I’m going to guess around 10 quite substantial wineries,” said Jeff O’Neill, a wine and liquor company CEO who has previously taken private equity funding. It flows through “wineries selling everything from 200,000 cases to 10 million cases,” he said.
The growing prevalence is controversial. There are the standard critiques of private equity: that it guts companies’ staff, does a poor job of operating and disproportionately leads to bankruptcy. But the wine industry’s skeptics also argue that private equity’s typical timeline is at odds with the nature of this business, which is slow to deliver returns. To those who prize family ownership, these firms can look like vultures, squeezing any possible profit out of multigenerational businesses in a short-term play.
“It doesn’t matter the type of investor,” said Alex Ryan, the former CEO of Duckhorn. “If you’ve got a 36-month timer on it, you’ll be a terrible winery investor.”
Nevertheless, the wine industry — and Duckhorn in particular — has proven enormously lucrative for some private equity funds. “On the surface the impression is that private equity should not be compatible with the wine business,” said Robert Nicholson, principal of International Wine Associates, a mergers-and-acquisitions advisor. But the phenomenal success stories of a select few have all but ensured that it won’t go away anytime soon. “It attracts attention,” said Nicholson. “There are lots of private equity funds looking at the business.”
A banner performance
Private equity hopes for big returns. A firm raises capital from outside investors, then invests that fund in a company and tries to grow the company’s value. It usually aims to exit — selling the company or going public, thereby paying back its own investors — in five to seven years, though the term could be longer or shorter.
O’Neill was an early adopter of private equity investment in wine. In 1985, his small family business had just gone bankrupt and he wanted to start a new one, Golden State Vintners, but he needed capital. Private equity firm Ardshiel Inc. was his lifeline. When Ardshiel sold to another private equity fund eight years later, it made 10 times its initial investment, O’Neill said. Golden State Vintners eventually went public, then sold to the Wine Group, the second largest wine company in the country.
The modern era of private equity in wine really began in 2007 when San Francisco’s GI Partners bought Duckhorn from its founding family. The price was around $280 million, according to a source with knowledge of the deal. In 2016, GI flipped Duckhorn for a reported sum of over $600 million to another San Francisco private equity firm, TSG Consumer Partners. Five years later, TSG took Duckhorn public.
“This is a flagship banner fabulous performance,” said Nicholson. “I would say that’s probably the best example in the California wine business of a successful private equity investment.”
Duckhorn grew tremendously during this period. In the TSG years, it became an acquisition powerhouse, buying the famed wineries Calera, Sonoma-Cutrer and Kosta Browne (which Duckhorn scooped up from another private equity fund, J.W. Childs.) “It could have been a very different business today if it had been absorbed by a wine industry giant” like Constellation, said Nicholson.
Ryan, the CEO until 2023, attributes this success to “the teams that were running the wineries,” but also to “time and place”: GI and TSG happened to come in during a period when the wine industry overall was still growing.
Butterfly Equity, which bought Duckhorn in October for $1.95 billion, delisting it from the stock market, is not benefiting from the same market conditions. Last week, Butterfly revealed that it would be discontinuing some of the Duckhorn Portfolio’s brands and consolidating into fewer facilities — a shake-up that might seem to suggest it’s in trouble.
But Nicholson said that isn’t necessarily the case. “They’re probably just streamlining things,” he said. Cutting costs, restructuring, finding efficiencies: These are classic private equity moves.
The Right Private Equity Firm
A few months before it exited Duckhorn in 2016, GI Partners acquired a majority share in another Napa Valley winery, Far Niente Wine Estates. Proprietor Beth Nickel, who co-founded the winery with her late husband in 1979, said that GI’s infusion of capital has allowed Far Niente to hire the sought-after (and expensive) winemaking consultant Thomas Rivers Brown; to acquire Provenance Vineyards and transform it into a home for their Bella Union label; and “to modernize much of our technology.” Nine years later, GI has yet to exit — a relatively long tenure.
“The right private equity firm,” said Rob McMillan, executive vice president of Silicon Valley Bank’s wine division, “brings business acumen picked up elsewhere that can make the whole business better.”
Silver Oak Cellars has not spoken publicly about its ownership, but the website of the private equity firm Patricof Co., which raises its funds primarily from professional athletes, suggests that it invested in Silver Oak in early 2023. In February, Silver Oak abruptly closed two tasting rooms for its Twomey brand. Two months later, David Duncan, the son of Silver Oak’s co-founder, ceded his longtime role as CEO to Jared Fix, whose resume includes short stints at Toms, Allbirds and Juul.
One of the most recent private equity deals in Napa Valley involves Spring Mountain Vineyard, a historic property that was the setting for the 1980s soap opera “Falcon Crest,” and its circumstances were unusual. Spring Mountain’s previous owner had defaulted on a $185 million loan that the private equity firm MGG Investment Group issued to him, and MGG acquired the winery for a $42 million credit bid in a bankruptcy auction. Given the winery’s substantial debt and the fact that MGG is now spending around $100 million to rehabilitate the property, it may take many years to recoup the investment.
“We’ll be here at least 5 more years,” Spring Mountain CEO Peter Ekman told the Chronicle in April. The grapevines, just replanted, won’t yield saleable wine for a few more years. Before MGG can sell the winery, “they still have to prove the wines.”
A Test Of Patience
Meanwhile, two California wineries recently shed their private equity backing. Sycamore Partners Management in 2021 paid $1.2 billion for Washington’s Ste. Michelle Wine Estates, whose portfolio included Sonoma’s Patz & Hall and Napa’s Stag’s Leap Wine Cellars. In 2023, Sycamore sold Stag’s Leap to Italy’s Antinori family, which had been a part owner since 2007; and last year, co-founder James Hall bought back Patz & Hall himself.
“There have been examples of successes and failures,” said Silicon Valley Bank’s McMillan. “We’ve seen examples of wineries going public and selling off important assets to meet investor expectations.”
Even the savviest investors won’t be immune from the ills of today’s wine market. “The ability to sell a brand is entirely dependent on the market conditions, not the performance of the brand,” said Andrew Nelson, president of WarRoom Cellars, which has acquired nine California wine brands since 2018. “When the market’s hot and frothy, brands are selling at high multiples of their annual contribution. When those buyers go away, they’re worth nothing.”
They key to success, McMillan suggested, might be the willingness to wait. Private equity firms “are a welcome source of capital if they are patient investors and come with long-term investment horizons,” he said. But patience doesn’t always come in five- to seven-year increments.
The return on the investment is one question. What happens to the winery after the exit is another. When wineries are traded like commodities, especially high-end wineries, they may lose some of their distinctiveness in the eyes of their customers. The departures of the people that made the winery an attractive investment in the first place — the founders, winemakers, viticulturists, its institutional knowledge holders — will change the business fundamentally.
Although O’Neill credits private equity with helping him start Golden State Vintners in the ‘80s, he was grateful to be able to launch his next venture, O’Neill Vintners & Distillers, with his own personal capital. “If you can do without private equity, a large private company is great,” he said. He’s since grown it to become the country’s 18th largest wine company.
(SF Chronicle)
PERMIT ME A VOYAGE
by James Agee
Take these who will as may be: I
Am careless now of what they fail:
My heart and mind discharted lie
And surely as the nerved nail
Appoints all quarters on the north
So now it designates him forth
My sovereign God my princely soul
Whereon my flesh is priestly stole:
Whence forth shall my heart and mind
To God through soul entirely bow,
Therein such strong increase to find
In truth as is my fate to know:
Small though that be great God I know
I know in this gigantic day
What God is ruined and I know
How labors with Godhead this day:
How from the porches of our sky
The crested glory is declined:
And hear with what translated cry
The stridden soul is overshined:
And how this world of wildness through
True poets shall walk who herald you:
Of whom God grant me of your grace
To be, that shall preserve this race.
Permit me voyage, Love, into your hands.
GEORGIA WOMAN SURVIVES THREE WEEKS LOST IN THE SIERRAS
by Ida Mojadad
After Tiffany Slaton was miraculously found alive on Wednesday following three weeks lost in the Sierra, the question was: How?
According to Slaton herself, a lot of leeks. She’s a trained forager and permaculturist, and leeks are both bountiful in the Sierra and nutritious. So nutritious that her bloodwork was in remarkable shape at the hospital, she said during a press conference on Friday. Her eyes, however, took some damage from an extended time in the blinding white snow, requiring sunglasses in the aftermath.
“How did I avoid death? I’m pretty good at foraging,” Slaton said during her first public appearance on Friday. Her comments were peppered with good spirits and occasional solemn remarks, such as when she said, “On many occasions, I fought nature and lost.”
She also spoke about the thoughts that went through her mind when she realized she was in trouble.
“I would rather live than have to deal with my parents seeing that I failed in such a dumb way,” she said.
Slaton was found alive in a cabin at the Vermilion Valley Resort in the Sierra National Forest. The owner left the doors unlocked through the winter just in case some lost soul needed protection to survive the harsh elements.
Her survival was called “miraculous” and “remarkable” by officials used to searching for people who don’t show back up. No one had seen Slaton alive since April 24, as far as the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office was aware.
Slaton’s family in Georgia last heard from her on April 20, at the start of what was supposed to be a three-day vacation before starting medical school. Nine days later, they reported her missing and set off a long and tough search for Slaton and her electric bike with a red trailer attached.
Soon into her trek, Slaton recounted falling off a cliff and getting knocked unconscious. When she came to, she had to pop her knee back in and make a splint for her leg. Slaton said she couldn’t make it back to the road, blocked by the avalanche she determined she had been in, and attempts to call 911 failed. Her phone, however, could route her to Starbucks, the nearest one being 18 miles away.
“You can’t get me 911, you can’t get me GPS, but you can get me a Starbucks?” Slaton said. “…In doing so, I ended up on this very long, arduous journey that I journaled to try and keep sane.”
While Slaton was trying to stay sane, Fresno officials conducted an intensive five-day ground search beginning on May 6 that involved volunteer teams, Jeeps, airplanes and horses scouring the rugged terrain of the Sierra National Forest.
After finding no sign of Slaton or her belongings, the search scaled back until officials could find more clues to target another area. The latest info they had to go on was that she was last seen on April 24 in the Shaver Lake area, northeast of Fresno.
The search and rescue team was able to search past the Mono Hot Springs, the last area Slaton was known to be headed to, only via airplane due to the snowy conditions.
Her parents didn’t give up. “There’s plenty of adventures out there and her adventures are not over yet,” her father, Bobby Slaton, said during a press conference last week.
Slaton somehow made it past the hot springs on her own. She went farther northeast, up to Kaiser Peak at an elevation of more than 9,000 feet, and left her bike buried in the snow at a trailhead, according to the Fresno County Sheriff’s Office. Then, a blizzard hit the area.
“I only saw white upon white in that storm,” Slaton said. As she approached the cabin where she would be found, she saw a “pristine Christmas tree and a tiny house and it had markers like Santa’s sleigh, and I could not understand. I actually thought I was losing my mind at that point, that I had somehow managed to make it to the North Pole.”
Slaton was ultimately found the next morning about 40 miles, or a two-hour drive, farther east than where she was last seen at Shaver Lake. Fresno officials at the time thought she may have turned back at Mono Hot Springs after realizing it was snowed in.
The owner of the Vermilion Valley Resort, Chris Gutierrez, said he was barely able to make it to the property on Wednesday after previous failed attempts.
“Without Vermilion resort, I would not be here,” Slaton said. “…That was the 13th heavy snowstorm I had been in, and it was going to be the last one. If the owner hadn’t come that day, they would have found my body there.”
Slaton added that, while her digestive system is responding better, recovery will take some time. Medical school is off the table for now while she determines how to obtain proper health care, which funds from a GoFundMe her mother started will go toward.
“It’s going to take a long time for these kind of conditions to actually just work themselves out,” Slaton said on Friday. “I haven’t had a chance to see a doctor.”
(SFGate.com)
I CALL GRANDMA ON HER 93RD
Oh hello Donnie,
Are you keeping busy she asks
Yeah Grandma
Kitchen full of people &
A state highway in the backyard…
& Grandpa? Oh yes he’s fine
In the front room
Yes, we’re fine &
Oh that John
That little John
He plays so well now
Plays so well
Well, nice to talk with you
Happy Birthday
Happy Birthday Grandma
& all my love to Grandpa
Short Interview With My Grandpa On His Ninety-Eighth Birthday
“What’s that? What’s that…?!
Yeah, yeah. What’s that?
Speak up!
Any remarks?
Yeah, yeah, a…let’s see,
I’m ninety-eight years old today!”
Come on Grandpa, I’m not going to let you off that easily.
You know what I mean, one of those comments
Wise-Old-People-Make
about
Important-Things-In-Life.
“Important thing in life?”
Yes, I say.
“Important thing in life…Well, lemme see, important thing in life:
A Pocket Knife.
Keep One Good Pocket Knife
& Keep It Sharp!”
THE TRAGEDY OF JOE BIDEN
by Maureen Dowd
The denouement of Joe Biden is unbearably sad.
The Irishman who could spend 45 minutes answering one question lost his gift of gab. The father who saw two of his children die and two spin into addiction wilted under the ongoing stress, especially when Hunter Biden — “my only living son,” as Joe called him — got tangled in the legal system.
The gregarious pol, who loved chatting up lawmakers on both sides of the aisle, ended up barricaded in his Rehoboth, Del., house with Covid, furious at everyone, proclaiming his oldest friends disloyal naysayers. He was fuming at nearly everyone except Jill, Hunter and the cordon sanitaire of aides who had fueled his delusions that he could be re-elected despite his feeble and often incoherent state at 81.
And, saddest of all, the man known for his decency, empathy, humility and patriotic spirit was poisoned by power, losing the ability to see that, in clinging to his office, he was hurting the party and the country he had served for over half a century. And hurting himself, ensuring a shellacking in the history books.
It is the oldest story in tragedy: hubris.
If presidents get reduced to their essence, Joe Biden’s is a chip on his shoulder.
He did not want to hear from former President Barack Obama that he should pass the torch to someone younger, so Obama tried to work obliquely through others to ease him out. Biden saw Obama as the one who pushed him aside in 2015 for Hillary Clinton, a fellow member of the elite world of Ivy Leaguers, a world Biden always felt was sniffy toward him.
Obama gave Biden a consolation prize in 2017, a Presidential Medal of Freedom, when Joe wanted a different piece of metal: Excalibur. Biden’s chip grew larger.
By the end, when he was bubble-wrapped in 2024, he trusted only his family and his closest aides. And they protected him with a damaging chimera. Sugarcoated interpretations of polls that were not reflected elsewhere. Extreme efforts to redesign the presidency to adapt to his ever more fragile state. Trashing Robert Hur for telling the truth. Refusing to do the cognitive testing that might have established a diagnosis.
“The public should be informed of the whole truth. Not selective truth,” Dr. Jonathan Reiner, an internist and cardiologist at George Washington University Hospital who has been a White House medical consultant for the last four administrations, told Jake Tapper and Alex Thompson for their compelling new book about Biden’s Shakespearean fall, “Original Sin.”
“Selective truth” sounds disturbingly like “alternative facts,” as Kellyanne Conway called Donald Trump’s modus vivendi. Tapper and Thompson show how Biden and his inner circle created an alternate universe that they tried to sell to the media and the public — the sort of corrosive mirage of unreality that Trump excels at building.
It was painful and infuriating to watch, and it’s painful and infuriating to read about. The nadir, of course, was Biden’s cascade of caesurae at the debate. It was not, as his advisers insisted, merely a bad night. It was a stunning display of a steep mental decline.
Witnesses behind the scenes told me they were dismayed from the start, when Biden showed up less than a half-hour before the debate started. He didn’t want to do a walk-through and test the equipment. He already seemed out of it, even though his large staff contingent seemed — to some CNN folks — oddly sanguine.
It was not just Joe and Jill who wanted to hang on to power, with all the perks and trips and, for Jill, glamorous Vogue covers. It was also their advisers, Mike Donilon, Steve Ricchetti, Anita Dunn, Anthony Bernal and Annie Tomasini. The “palace guard,” as Chuck Schumer derisively dubbed top Biden advisers, slid from sycophancy to solipsism.
The more Biden was out of it, the more his hours and responsibilities were curtailed, the more of a vacuum there was at the top, the more power the advisers had. They treated his alarming deterioration like a political vulnerability, something to be concealed, not a matter of concern to all Americans, something we had a right to know.
It took the Democrats far too long to acknowledge and push back against what Americans could see with their own eyes. Democratic pooh-bahs and lawmakers were silent when they should have been screaming — as the Republicans are now with Trump’s egregious assaults on the Constitution, his cringey grifting, his crazed revenge moves against anyone who has crossed him, and his loony Truth Social screeds attacking Bruce Springsteen and Taylor Swift.
The Bidens and their allies still try to prove Biden is all there. He has done interviews on “The View” with Jill, and the BBC on his own, acting as though what happened was not a shocking tableau of duplicity.
“President Joe Biden got out of bed the day after the 2024 election convinced that he had been wronged,” Tapper and Thompson write. “The elites, the Democratic officials, the media, Nancy Pelosi, Barack Obama — they shouldn’t have pushed him out of the race.” The polls said he could have beaten Trump, Biden felt, and his team had always doubted Kamala Harris’s abilities.
But the polls Biden kept counting on never existed — except in Bidenworld’s gauzy alternate universe.
(NY Times)
BIDEN WAS OUT OF IT
Editor:
In fall 2019 ahead of the Iowa caucuses, at a campaign event in Des Moines, my wife and I were seated directly in front of Joe Biden, who was no more than a few feet from our faces for most of his stump speech. The speech, rambling and at times incoherent, was picked up by the press (including the Times) after Biden’s statement that “poor kids are just as smart and just as talented as white kids”—a gaffe jumped on by the Trump campaign. But beyond that I noted to my wife and others that there was something wrong with Biden, that he was often confused and grasping for words, struggling to recover his train of thought. When I remarked on social media what seemed to me Biden’s obvious mental deterioration, many of my friends who were Biden supporters—and who were at that event with me—jumped all over me as biased due to my support at the time for Elizabeth Warren for the nomination. And many of these same folks went after me for stating the obvious after his catastrophic debate performance. So it was not simply Biden himself, his wife or his protective inner circle who were in denial: he was aided and abetted by millions of otherwise sensible Democrats who couldn’t—wouldn’t—believe their eyes and ears, choosing instead to back a candidate who had been slipping for years at a cost to the nation that we’ve scarce begun to calculate.
Dennis Smith
Des Moines, Iowa
ON-LINE COMMENT OF THE DAY
I find it laughable to read more writers, like Maureen Dowd, act as though Joe Biden’s decline is something new and surprising. It was OBVIOUS to any one watching him in the last two and half years. The media blatantly stated over and over and over that he was fine and he was clearly not. This is one more example why people feel misled by many in the media. It was clear to anyone watching but they were told not to believe “their lying eyes.”
NED KELLY
This striking portrait captures Ned Kelly, Australia’s infamous outlaw, taken just one day before his execution on November 11, 1880. At only 25 years old, Kelly’s image reflects a young man hardened by a turbulent life marked by conflict with colonial authorities and his role as the leader of the Kelly Gang. Known for his defiance against the British colonial police, Kelly became a symbol of rebellion and resistance, both vilified and romanticized in Australian folklore.
Beside the portrait is a photograph of the iconic suit of armour Kelly wore during his final confrontation with police at the siege of Glenrowan. Crafted from ploughshares and homemade steel plates, the armour covered his torso and head, providing protection against bullets in a desperate last stand. This makeshift armour remains one of the most recognizable artifacts in Australian history, symbolizing Kelly’s ingenuity and determination.
Together, the images tell a powerful story of a young man who challenged authority and became a legendary figure in Australia’s cultural identity. They offer a window into the violent and lawless conditions of 19th-century colonial Australia and the complex legacy of Ned Kelly—a folk hero to some, an outlaw to others.
LEAD STORIES, SUNDAY'S NYT
The Group Behind Project 2025 Has a Plan to Crush the Pro-Palestinian Movement
Trump Shrugs Off Netanyahu on Gulf Tour
Pope Leo XIV Celebrates Inaugural Mass as Head of Catholic Church
JD Vance Returns to the Vatican, a Potential Reset for the American Right
Zelensky Attends Leo’s Mass After Pope Offered to Help End War
HIGH-ALTITUDE SONIC TONIC
by David Yearsley
In these days when the formerly public sphere is balkanized by billions of individualized audiotopias in which so many are plugged into their own algorithmized soundtracks, the actual choosing of music for a road trip takes on an ever more nostalgic allure.
No less crucial is the music selected to prepare for the trip, be it down the interstate and across state lines or through the skies and over the oceans. Depending on mood and circumstance, this prelude to a voyage could be one of frenzied anticipation; or a succession of high voltage jolts to keep awake while packing through the small hours leading up to an early morning flight; a soothing tonic for jangled nerves; or a search for consoling tones that salve the pain of an imminent parting. Music sets the emotional and moral course of the journey before it has begun.
After this weekend’s train trip from Seattle to Portland, I’ll be once filling a standing prescription against the dread of airports and planes, of boarding scrums and spilled coffee, of AWOL luggage and lost passports, of oxygen-deprivation and Duty-Free shops, of jetlag and missed connections.
The aural medication to be consumed, as so often before, will be Bach’s secular cantata Ich bin in mir vergnügt (I am cheerful in myself), BWV 204. The elegant misanthropy of its message is perfect for the potentially dyspeptic traveler. There is nothing more uplifting for the climb to cruising altitude, but also for the hours and days before takeoff.
Written for a solo soprano voice and lasting about half-an-hour, the piece was probably composed around 1728, just as Bach emerged from a tremendous outpouring of sacred music over his first five years as Cantor at the School and St. Thomas and Director of Music in Leipzig. During this stretch he produced a cantata nearly every week. Perhaps it is no coincidence that the dark vision of much of that church music gives way in this secular cantata to a carefree exuberance. The shackles of church and home are thrown off in favor of thirty minutes of unencumbered contentment.
As I regard my snug suitcase and the scores and shirts and socks that must be fitted into it, I think of the composer of the cantata that now plays. In his youth Bach was perhaps the greatest walker in the history of music: doing thirty miles each way to hear the great organists of Hamburg; four hundred round-trip in winter weather to learn from the great Buxtehude.
But by the time he composed Ich bin in mir vergnügt for an unknown occasion, Bach’s life had become a lot fuller: the resourceful orphan now occupied one of the top public music jobs in Germany. His life had filled up with many children and possessions: musical instruments, religious books, and the accouterments—like a silver coffee set—of the middle-class life he had attained, if tenuously.
The poem he set to music in this secular cantata was by Christian Friedrich Hunold. The poet was born a few years before Bach in the same region of central Germany. Like Bach, Hunold was orphaned at the age of ten, but unlike him received a vast inheritance. By the age of nineteen Hunold had squandered his fortune in what he called “gallant” living, in particular an affection for the gaming table. He fled to Germany’s biggest, most vibrant city, Hamburg where he became a bestselling author of salacious novels. That he based these stories on real events and people—including his own amorous affairs—led to his eventual flight from Hamburg back to his place of origins in the Thuringian forest—also Bach country. There Hunold turned his attentions increasingly to moral poetry in the decade before his death in 1721 at the age of forty-one from tuberculosis.
Given that Bach is often seen as unyieldingly stern, it may seem odd that this louche literary figure seems to have been one of the composer’s favorite poets. But then again, Ich bin in mir vergnügt turns from pleasure to renunciation: of things and even people. The opening section of Hunold’s poem, which Bach moves in his cantata to the penultimate seventh number, revels in a blithe self-reliance: the narrator has “no property in land” nor any monetary wealth whatever. Friends and pleasure are only reflections of “vanity.” Nor “would he fly high in the air”—presumably not even in business class.
The cantata opens in Bach’s rearrangement of Hunold’s text with a recitative declaiming in a forthright, even disarming style on the joys of personal fulfillment free of wealth and status. Yet for all its soaring passages suggesting the rapture of self-reliance the ensuing aria, “To be tranquil and contented within / Is the greatest treasure in the world, is not unambiguous in its portrayal of this message. The soprano is shadowed by two oboes that do not seem fully to embrace the soprano’s pronouncements. Bach sews furtive doubts in the neat rows of Hunold’s poetry, as if the composer knew the libertine’s backstory. The music suggests even more vividly than the text the idea that inner contentment must be wrested from within and not from debauched world that looms just beyond the self-imposed isolation of the moralist.
A second recitative enjoins the listener never to sell the “wealth of the spirit” to pay for admittance into the dungeon of “desire.” This mini-sermon then opens on to one of Bach’s most gracious and welcoming arias—the very one I’ve got looping endlessly this morning as I contemplate my overhead bag and the fate of travelers: “Die Schätzbarkeit der weiten Erden” (The values of the wide world).
The wide world beckons in Bach’s exultant ritornello that gambols over a well-worn bass line path to gain seemingly endless vistas of possibility and promise. Yet the way the composing traveler walks that route, as if improvising on paper with his quill pen, has the ring of truth, both spontaneous and eternal. It is not surprising that this lovely and radiant obbligato line has been recorded by the likes of Itzhak Perlman and Hilary Hahn on anthologies of Bach arias.
For all its ceaseless grace, however, the aria also offers moments of repose with the long-held tones that leave “the soul in peace.” In the middle section of the movement, seamlessly stitched to the outer ones, Bach roughs up the smooth, if jaunty texture by having the voice nimbly urge the listener to seek richness in poverty with minor-mode arabesques that are like mottos carved into the trunk of a tree encountered on the walk through a cool grove.
Wedged into seat 33E between a Mormon missionary unable to resist watching Heretic on her seatback screen and teen grinning at John Wick 4 on his, I’m not even there, 39,000 feet in the sky. I’m already back on earth striding through green fields and alongside clear brooks.
(David Yearsley is a long-time contributor to CounterPunch and the Anderson Valley Advertiser. His latest albums, “In the Cabinet of Wonders” and “Handel’s Organ Banquet” are now available from False Azure Records.)
TOO LATE, YOU DAMNED KILLERS
From Politico, 5/18/25
“Special envoy Steve Witkoff on Sunday said the Trump administration vowed to avert a humanitarian disaster in Gaza but offered a caveat: ‘It is a very complicated situation there.’ ”
“Speaking Sunday on ABC’s “This Week,” President Donald Trump’s envoy to the Middle East said when it comes to attempting to feed hungry Gazans: ‘It is complicated. It is logistically complicated. And the conditions on the ground are dangerous. There are still many unexploded shells all over the place. So, we have to be mindful of that…’ ”
This is a sorry, pathetic, cruel, message, makes me sad and mad. Biden, and now Trump, have supported and facilitated and excused this brutality, now clearly a genocide, clearly war crimes against a largely civilian population— and these pathetic excuses are all they can come up with?
PS–This Witkoff guy, just another rich business man, is untrained and unfit for his work as a diplomat–termed a “special envoy.” It does indeed seem “too complicated” for him to act in a decisive, humane way to tell/order the Israelis to open Gaza to food and other humanitarian resources. Prevent famine and more loss of life– that should be his job and goal.
its the greatest newspaper ever made..thank you bruce and mark…
how long can we hold on?
The editor seems to leave out a group psycho’s.
Let’s see BLM rioters whose cause was a convicted felon. Go figure. Antifa, who held an assault on federal building in Portland with hardly any justice handed out unlike Jan. 6 rioters. America Haters(Democrats) who have fire bombed Tesla. Also, their self appointed hero Luigi Mangone, a gutless coward who shoots a man in his back. Two assassination attempts by crazed liberals. And now, Jim Comey who calls for Trump to be assassnated. Great reporting, Bruce. Just confirms you’re part of the legacy media of lies and cover up. Maybe you can get a job on CNN, you would fit right in.
Thank you, Call, and on behalf of psychos everywhere, I accept this long delayed recognition.
My neighbors heard me laughing. I’m jealous. I’m only a “weirdo who hangs out drinking with vagrants under the bridge”. I will work on it…
And doing whatever Photo Op Mo tells you to do. I heard a rumor she buys them alcohol.
Are you her mule?
Such crap. BLM was a legitimate movement borne from the wrongful deaths of a number of black citizens. Contrary to your beliefs it is not legal to kill an otherwise innocent person who has a criminal record. Antifa? That’s just a name for the boogey man that hides under your bed. Name one confirmed member of antifa. Democrats bombed Tesla? Where’s your proof? There are a few people making a hero out of Mangione but why say they are Democrats when there is no evidence. The vast majority of Democrats condemn the murder of Brian Thompson, just as you should – do you really want to turn his legacy into fodder for lame political propaganda?. James Comey did more than any other single human to get Trump elected over Hillary Clinton in 2016 – Trump should be grateful for that. Finally, if you don’t like the AVA or Bruce Anderson, why don’t you troll somewhere else? Please.
So let’s answer the crap, as you put it. BLM was a scam. They go against everything Martin Luther King preached. You see he wanted you to look at his character not his skin color. BLM is based on skin color. They even tell you you’re racist if you say, all lives matter. To this date they cannot show you where they spent their donations. Oh, except for three mansions and an embezzlement case. That’s quite the boogeyman.
Tesla, it surely wasn’t Republicans holding signs to kill Elon. As matter of fact, elected Democrats could be seen daily on tv saying fuck DOGE and Elon.
Antifa, started on the campus of Stanford University. They use the anarchist symbol. The ones who have been arrested usually can be traced to our education system. Go figure.
How do we know Democrats support these groups. They created bail funds and your hero Kamala publicly supported them.
Haven’t seen one Democrat condemn Mangone, not one. Media like CNN have had reporters doing stories calling him a hero and using the overpriced healthcare system as an excuse. Your buddy Bruce McEwen wrote in the AVA in support of Luigi. Last time I checked, ol’ radical Bruce isn’t a conservative.
James Comey, really! Just look at all the lies this man tells. Leaked information on regular basis. You may be right, I think he hates Hillary more than he hates Trump.
You have no common sense because you hate one man more than you love our country.
More crap.
All these hearts broken over a good man’s passing and you come out throwing insults and offal at the mourners. I can’t think of a better chance to remind you that, in the words of Taj Mahal, “I’ll be glad when you’re dead, you rascal you, uh huh, people gonna be standing out on the corner clapping and cheering when they drag your sorry butt by, uh huh, folks gonna be damn glad when you’re gone, you rascal, you.”
(I saw Taj Mahal at the Miner Auditorium last time Trump was president and I tried to get Taj to sing this one then but he didn’t.)
To the Editor:
I was heartbroken to hear that Johnny Pinches had passed. He was the best among us.
When I was moved to Ukiah in 1998, and in the subsequent years up that followed up until the present, Johnny taught me what it meant to love Mendocino County. I was a city slicker — born and raised in the New York metropolitan area and had worked on Wall Street and lived on Perry Street in Greenwich Village — and I was clueless about how lucky I was to have landed in Mendocino County.
I was clueless until I met Johnny Pinches. I became his “project”.
I connected with Johnny while serving on the county grand jury, and we instantly bonded. Johnny took me to state water board meetings in Sacramento. Water issues were Johnny’s political passion. He would meet me for lunch at Board of Supervisor meetings.
On numerous occasions, I visited Johnny’s ranch in the northernmost reaches of our county.
On Johnny’s ranch, I did a lot of things for the first time in my life. I touched the flank of a cow for the first time in my life. I rode a horse. I smoked pot and learned how to roll a joint. I put my feet in the cold waters of the North Fork of the Eel River. I chased a puppy. I howled at the moon.
Johnny taught me about the massacres of Pomo Indians by white settlers and how Pomo ancestral lands were stolen from them and how Pomo children were subjugated to near-slavery condition picking hops– much like how Black children were forced to pick cotton for pennies a day in the Deep South.
Johnny taught me about Pomo culture. Once, we visited the Grace Hudson Museum together, and Johnny showed me Pomo baskets and taught me about the community support, spiritual practice, and ceremony behind traditional basketweaving.
The seasons passed from summer to winter, and the years passed, and Johnny’s diabetes caught up with him, and Johnny had to retire from the Board of Supervisors because he couldn’t drive anymore because his diabetic retinopathy caught with him. Yet, we stayed in touch.
Johnny encouraged me to be an “activist” grand juror on several do-nothing, do-no-harm county grand juries in an era when the same useless political sycophant got appointed foreman every other year for about a decade. Johnny encouraged me to serve on the board of Mendocino County Employee Retirement Association as a trustee and bonded fiduciary. Johnny encouraged me to serve on the board of the Mendocino County Redevelopment Agency and on board of the Ukiah Valley Sanitation District. Johnny encouraged me to run for 1st District Supervisors in 2020. Johnny encouraged me to keep doing my public affairs radio show, first on KZYX, then on KMEC, now on KMUD.
Johnny, you called me to public service. You called me to love and to serve Mendocino County.
Johnny Pinches, you were a good friend. A good mentor. A good, good man. I love you, brother.
John Sakowicz
Ukiah
That’s a fine and heartfelt remembrance of your friend and teacher, John.
I loved Johnny. We were the Odd Couple. We couldn’t have been more different. A city slicker and a country boy. A Wall Street salesman and a rancher. A college boy and a guy who had more common sense in his pinkie toe than I had in my whole body.
Yet, we got along just great from the git go, and we got along fine. We bonded instantly. We made each other laugh. We spent hours in Johnny’s truck driving to and from Sacramento and were never bored, never got on the other’s nerves, always found something to talk about…talked about the same incompetence and insularity in county government that irritated the shit out of both of us.
Each in our own way, we fought same knuckleheads who have run county government for the last 20-30 years. Just a small, small sample? Supervisors Kendall Smith. Dan Hamburg, and Michael Delbar. CEO Jim Anderson. County Treasurer Tim Knutsen. DA Susan Mancini. County Counsels Jeanine Nadel, Kit Elliott and Christian Curtis. And MCSO Lt. Shannon Barney, and Undersheriffs Randy Johnson and Gary Hudson.
Etc. Etc. Etc. You get the picture, Mr. Dunbar.
I am so sad.
In front of a guest computer in the downstairs Fabrication Lab area of the Martin Luther King Jr. Public Library in Washington, D.C. This follows a satisfactory morning of picking up litter beginning at the Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter, all the way down Queen’s Chapel Road on both sides, to the B2 Anacostia bus stop, paying particular attention to the detritus left by the club kids who visit Echostage and Karma. And then a scrumptious lunch at Whole Foods from the salad bars was enjoyed. Moving on to a coffee and pastry soon. Whereas the President of the United States of America is out golfing somewhere, there is no reason to go to the Peace Vigil today. He won’t see the protest signs nor hear the peace chants. The other vigilers will spend this sunny May afternoon watching the fountain on the White House front lawn. Otherwise, please continue identifying with that which is “prior to consciousness”. We are not these bodies nor these minds. As the Zen Master Rev. Jiyu Kennett once remarked: “Your life is not your own”. Gassho
Craig Louis Stehr
Adam’s Place Homeless Shelter
2210 Adams Place NE #1
Washington, D.C. 20018
Telephone Messages: (202) 832-8317
Email: [email protected]
May 18, 2025 Anno Domini @ 3:21 p.m. EDT
John Pinches was rich, though not wealthy in modern California terms. Most importantly, he was his own man, and knew who he was, a feature seldom seen in politics. Because of that he said things that needed to be said, that others would not say. His life experience was deep. He worked for what he had, and nothing was handed to him. We need more like him.
RIP Johnny Pinches. The likes of him will be seldom seen again.
About the ED NOTES: THIS & THAT
IT TOOK GUALALA ten years to get their power poles buried, but they’re buried. Elk, Point Arena, Hopland? Done. Boonville’s been on the burial list for at least thirty years, but our unsightly tangles of poles and wires are still with us.
(Mark Scaramella Notes: I’ve heard unofficially that there’s a chance Boonville’s power lines will be buried as part of the proposed Boonville water/sewer trenching — if one or both of the projects is/are approved. But one of the insiders will have to confirm that.)
It might help to get in touch with Caltrans and see if that can not be done at the same time as they want to do the Boonville Capital Preventive Maintenance (CAPM)/Complete Streets project.
Get Ted Williams’ support. He will appear at the ROTARY TOWN HALL on THURSDAY, MAY 22 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM at Preston Hall (Presbyterian Church) in Mendocino.
Mendocino County 5th District Supervisor Ted Williams will lead a community Town Hall to discuss current county issues and provide updates. This event, hosted by the Mendocino Rotary, is a great opportunity to ask questions, voice concerns, and engage in meaningful conversation about the future of our community. All are welcome!
Additional details:
Questions can be submitted in advance by emailing [email protected] or by visiting
http://www.mendocinorotary.org
See Caltrans planned project:
https://dot.ca.gov/caltrans-near-me/district-1/d1-projects/d1-boonville-capm-complete-streets