Say Hey! It’s Willie Mays Day in San Francisco

A toast to Jack F. Keating, Bud Luxford, The Treniers, and Willie Mays

When I was growing up Willie Mays was my favourite baseball player, and the SF Giants were my team. I was a kid in the Pacific Northwest, but my team was in Northern California.

HBO has a film on Willie coming out that is produced by Nelson George, former writer for the Village Voice.

Here is the Treniers with their song Say Hey (The Willie Mays Song). The Treniers were brothers with a wild act, and some very cool songs. Like Poontang. You heard me. Poontang. They say Poon is a hug. Tang is a kiss. Sure. The words make it seem sweet, but the wailing saxes tell the real story.

Yesterday was the send off for JFK, Jack “Fucking” Keating. Jack was a very beloved part of our music scene, a former sportswriter, always there with his little pad of paper and his pencil. He would take photos with a camera; Jack didn’t bother much with the internet or cell phones. He was old school.

And he loved the San Francisco Giants, just like I did. Funny, we never talked about that.

I used to play Strat-O-Matic Baseball. Nerds like me would replay entire seasons, compiling our own stats in the Strat -O-Matic world.  All the teams were there and every player. And every season new cards would arrive. It was all dice, pencils, and scorecards.

As I said, my team was the San Francisco Giants, with the great Willie Mays, Bobby Bonds ( father of disputed Home Run King*Barry Bonds), Juan Marichal, Willie McCovey, Chris Speier, Tito Fuentes, Dave Kingman and so many more.  Even the lousy players had their own cards.  

Here is a photo from my friend Gord McCaw of Jack in his Giants cap.

Last night was his celebration of life. A night for a man who was a shining light in our community. It was held in a small community hall, and was so packed with people, they had a door guy regulating how many could cone in, as surely we were near the limit. It was so great seeing friends that I had not seen for so many years, including the legendary punk promoter Bud Luxford. Bud is most famous for BudStock, the Fuck band extraganza he put on at the Commodore in the eighties. Then there was Boatin’ with Bud, and many, many others. So you could say there was a “fucking” connection with Jack and Bud, as Jack’s ultimate fuck band was JFK.

I was a singer on the first JFK show, and ended up singing Anarchy in the JFK with none other than Randy Rampage! It was a star studded night if I remember with Chris Arnett of the Furies, Howard Rix, and many more. I made the mistake of doing a knee drop, hearing something snap or crunch as I get the stage. My knees were buggered up for almost a year after that. The things we do for Rock.

Bud Luxford has his place in the pantheon of Vancouver Punk. He is a wonderfully crusty character, now with a long beard.

He started off the evening beckoning me with the warning,

“ I’ve got a bone to pick with you. “

I was a bit nervous, but came over to him, bending down to hear him as my left ear is blocked and I am hearing more hiss than vinegar.

Bud related a night at Lanalou’s, where I apparently made what could be construed as a disparaging comment on my way out of a club, in his general direction.

I had no recollection of the incident.

I replied, “That is part of the reason that I don’t drink anymore.”

Now if I make a bad comment, I can’t blame it on the booze. I am no stranger to the assoholic comment, but now I will just have to own it as the asshole I can be.

So I apologized and all seemed forgiven. Life is too short to not just apologize to the people we may have offended. That is something I want to do, not in a 12 step way, but because it helps me to live a more truthful life.

Bud shared with that he hates all music, except the Beatles, and that he pretty much owns everything they did. I had no clue that he was a Beatle fan. I did have an inkling that he hated music though!

Bud and his friend Nick Jones, from the Pointed Sticks, lived in the Manhattan when Michelle and I lived there. We moved in there in 1982. Bud and Nick were some of the “originals” that had lived there before the Renovation and conversion into a co-op. When they lived there, it was pretty punk, meaning broke down and roach ridden. But it was cheap like borscht, and the party’s were epic. I was going to say legendary as sometimes, there is no other word for legendary.

Especially when we speak of Willie Mays, The Treniers, Bud Luxford, and the light that left the room, JFK, Jack Fucking Keating.

Today, February 4 is Say Hey! It’s Willie Mays Day in San Francisco. Willie is 92, a couple years ahead of that other legend, Willie Nelson.

I tip my hat to you Jack. The world will be a bit darker and duller without you.