Enjoyed some time at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park this weekend. The festival is entirely free to attend, and is a gift to the public from the pocket of one Warren Hellman. It was so good that I’m thinking of making a trip back for next year’s show.
At the moment of this picture, we were all digging a bluegrass rendition of “That’s Just the Way It Is” with Bruce Hornsby and Ricky Skaggs. The park was filled with pot smokin’ porn watchin’ hippies, singlespeed ridin’ Pabst swillin’ hipsters, and Redman dippin’ truck drivin’ rednecks. And we all loved what we were hearing. Then, just after this picture was taken, the US Navy Blue Angels soared overhead in formation.
And the crowd cheered.
This is my America.
Mark Brooks
Golden Gate Park is one of my favorite places in San Fransisco. Generally I love all of that city.
I used to produce and host my own bluegrass/folk radio show when I was a volunteer at a public radio show in Anchorage, Alaska.
I just wanted to also thank you for your kind words over in my neighborhood recently. It meant a lot to me.
MB
Hey, Mark, you’re doing important work out there. I know I can be a bit flippant about the rest of Virginia sometimes, but that doesn’t mean I fail to appreciate the value of the good work that you do out there. Thank you. Sincerely.
~
I have to say, my appreciation for bluegrass didn’t fully bloom until I moved here (from Georgia, of all places). I first started listening on Sundays when I tuned into Red Shipley’s (RIP) Stained Glass Bluegrass show on Sundays in some douchebag irony vein. And then, one Sunday, I found myself really digging it . . . fast forward a decade, and I find myself wanting to burn down WAMU for sending all of the bluegrass programming to the hinterlands . . .
Mark Brooks
My grandmother and Grandfather played music at barn dances in the great plains back in the early 20th century, so my interest is more or less genetic. He used to bring instruments home in a paper bag from the flea market, fix them, build parts for them, and make his own varnish for them. His days have completely passed.
There is a group, the Locust Mountain Boys, who had played at quite a few events last year for Jim Webb and others. I met them earlier this year at the Tim Kaine ‘Gala’ in Richmond. I wish I could invite them to play sometime. Maybe my daughter’s wedding next March.
Thanks again.
MB
Mark, I don’t know what you did to Akismet (a popular spam comment filtering system), but it really doesn’t like you. Both of your comments went straight to the trash (bypassing the moderation queue entirely). The way Akismet works, that means this has probably happened to you at a lot of other places. So if you’re feeling particularly censored lately, this might be why . . .