Bridge School Concert Obama Fundraiser

President Obama was in Portland, OR on October 20. I know this because I was planning to go there that day and decided otherwise. Phew, I thought. I have escaped the President and his people. One day later I went to Portland to stay with a friend, who took me to the airport on Friday morning, October 22, for my flight to San Jose Airport. When I arrived, I realized that President Obama had just left the Bay Area, having arrived and left on October 21. While he whisked in and out of the area in a day or two, taking more than $1.5 million in tow, I was there twice as long and left with $165 in my pocket. Therein hangs not much of a tale...

His trip consisted of at least three things--a meeting with Apple Computer CEO Steve Jobs in a hotel near the San Francisco Airport; a 5:00 p.m. gathering at the Mesa Court, Atherton, home of Steve and Anita Westly (Steve is, like Meg Whitman, a former Ebay executive who has also run unsuccessfully for the Democratic nomination for governor in CA) and then a later dinner gathering at the Addison St., Palo Alto, home of attorney Zachary Bogue and Google exec. Marissa Mayer. This web site tells the interesting story of her political awakening through hearing Al Gore speak in Wausau (WI) West HS, where she was a student, in 1992. The tab for those attending each of the Obama events was $30,400. The Atherton and Palo Alto events each had 50 people present, which would mean that each event netted a tidy $1.5. I suppose that no one was reimbursed for the dinner expenses or hors d'oeuvres.

We don't know exactly what went on at the fund-raisers, but a good case can be made for there being a lot of rhetoric about improving the nation, world and galaxy. What is interesting to me, however, is a picture on the previously linked page, which shows all three people, Bogue, Mayer and Obama, neatly standing next to each other, each with hands properly clasped, each looking so perfectly professional in suits and ties or skirts, that it makes you wonder if the cost of all this self-control is worth it....

Moving to the Concert

Speaking of self-control (or lack of it) makes my thoughts now turn to the other big fund-raising event of the weekend--the annual Bridge School Benefit. That school for special needs children has been the fortunate recipient of the creative diligence of Neil and Pegi Young since the first concert in 1986. Each year Neil gets together a bunch of the old friends, and they put on a memorable concert at the Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View. It lasts two days; I only made it to the second day. But the lineup on that day is something to make aficionados of 1960s to 1990s music in America drool. Sunday's concert included the following acts: Kris Kristofferson, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello (who also emceed T-Bone Burnett's "Speaking Clock Revue"), Dr. Ralph Stanley, Neko Case, Jeff Bridges, Pearl Jam and Buffalo Springfield--among others. It was one powerful performance after another, a cascading sound of performers who looked as if they were having the time of their lives. Perhaps they were. The magnetic power of doing something you love for a cause that touches everybody's heart in front of an appreciative audience that knows that clasping your hands gently together is not the way to listen to this rock/alternative/country concert--well, it is magnetic.

Rolling Stone magazine already has a review of the concert, which it calls "one of the most historic of his (Neil Young's) annual benefits." You can read the reviews of the various performers there. What was most impressive to me about the entire seven-hour concert, which must have been a taste of heaven for many, was Buffalo Springfield's reunion after 42 years. They were known in the 1960s for many things, most famously for "For What It's Worth." Since then two of their five have died; the three remaining originals, with Richie Furay in the center, flanked by Stephen Stills on his right and Neil Young on his left, electrified the crowd with stirring renditions of "Mr. Soul," "Rock and Roll Woman," Do I Have to Come Right Out and Say It," "Burned" and "Nowadays Clancy Can't Even Sing." Nothing compared to Stephen Stills' slightly raspy rendition of "For What It's Worth." Every time they came to the chorus, "Stop! Hey what's that sound..?" the lights panning the crowd flashed on, and thousands of raincoat-clad fans, already standing, let out sounds that, had they been able to reach back in time, would have caught the dying echoes of the screams at Buffalo Springfield's last concert in 1968, creating a link or, in honor of the afternoon, a Bridge, to that earlier time. Those of us in the crowd had the feeling that we were not only witnessing three men who could still perform with verve and skill, but in a sense we were reaching back in time and linking the frayed edges of our own lives, with the memories of the 1960s and the realities of 2010 creating a wholeness or integrity which, for at least one beautiful moment, made our lives and our longings coalesce.

The Last Word is Neil's and Pegi's

As I went home that evening and flew back to Portland the next day, I couldn't help but think not so much about the music of the day but of those whose inspiration had made it happen: Neil and Pegi Young. Neil will be 65 in a few weeks, and his ability to pull off such a concert (really, his wife's ability to do so, with his help...), shows me three things about this man and life that ought not to be lost. The first is that when a man finds the right woman, he can do far more because of her than he could have done by himself. I think that was what Neil was trying to say, in a silent way, as he walked off the stage at the end of the concert with his arm around Pegi. Second, it shows the power of maintaining one's passion even as one ages. Though he graciously deferred in the Buffalo Springfield pieces to Stephen Stills and, especially, Richie Furay, one could hear his distinctive voice and playing throughout. Finally, it shows that friendship is so valuable and ought to be cultivated at all costs, not simply for the joy it brings between and among friends but for the pleasure that the friendship might bring to thousands of others. In the final analysis, then, though I was with 20,000 other people on a rainy and cool Sunday afternoon in Mountain View CA, I felt, in fact, that I was really at a sort of family and friend gathering, with the best musicians of our generation opening up and sharing their hearts for the sake of those who cannot sing, to the benefit of all of us who love music but cannot sing as well. What a special and memorable treat!

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