This is the Hot Read. In this column, you’ll find everything and anything I found interesting from the NFL Week 13 Sunday action. There’s the stuff that everyone’s talking about, and the stuff that nobody’s talking about; the stuff that makes football incredible, and the stuff that makes football fun. I hope you enjoy it and learn something cool—and if you do, I hope you’re back next week, when we do it all again.

The Big Thing: The Healthy 49ers Are the NFL’s Best Team

A lot happened this past NFL Sunday. If there’s one thing you need to know, it’s this.

Here are the best 10 offenses in football by expected points added per drive.

Nobody on this list is a big surprise. The 49ers, Cowboys, Dolphins, Bills, and Eagles fill out a clear first tier; the Lions, Rams, Chiefs, Ravens, and Chargers are in the second.

Now here’s the same graphic adjusted to remove Weeks 7 and 8 for the 49ers, when the team was without Deebo Samuel and Trent Williams.

This way, it looks far less like there’s a first tier and a second tier. It looks like there’s a lone leader.

Of course, this isn’t fair to everyone else. The Cowboys have had to play games without Tyron Smith and Tyler Smith, and the Dolphins without Terron Armstead, Robert Hunt, and De’Von Achane. Everyone deals with injuries.

But when the 49ers haven’t been dealing with injuries on offense, they’ve looked better than anyone else this season. In fact, they’re undefeated. They’ve won every game that both Samuel and Williams have started and finished. In Week 6, when they stumbled against the Browns, Samuel went down after just eight snaps; during Weeks 7 (at Minnesota) and 8 (against Cincinnati), both Samuel and Williams were out.

Those three games are the 49ers’ only losses on the season.

In each loss, they scored 17 points; in the nine full games that Samuel and Williams have both played, the 49ers have scored at least 30 points in all but one (in which they scored 27).

Again, I don’t want to give this treatment to just the 49ers. Plenty of teams have looked like juggernauts during stretches of this season. The Cowboys have scored at least 30 in each of their past four: 40 in three of those. The Eagles, before they ran into the 49ers, had won their last five against opponents such as the Dolphins, Cowboys, Chiefs, and Bills. But the 49ers played both of those teams and beat those teams by a combined score of 84-29. Nobody has felt more dominant, against bigger opponents, than this healthy Niners squad.

The Niners just present too many problems for opponents to solve. Every single player that might touch the ball for the 49ers is downright terrifying: Christian McCaffrey, George Kittle, Brandon Aiyuk, Deebo. Samuel leads all receivers in yards after catch per reception by over 1.5 yards per catch; Kittle is third among tight ends in YAC per reception, but he’s also third among tight ends in air yards per pass attempt—that’s not at all how that’s supposed to work. Aiyuk is top 20 among wideouts in both catch rate and air yards per target, which is—say it with me—not at all how that’s supposed to work.

When all of these guys are healthy, you just sit there as a defense and take it. There’s nothing else to do. Blow after blow, broken tackle after broken tackle, nifty motion into play-action fake into misdirection screen into actually, it’s a reverse. Also, you’ve just given up a third-down conversion to Jauan Jennings, and there goes Brock Purdy on a scramble. Are you with me? Do you need a minute? Can I get you a glass of water?

As fun as the 49ers offense has been when the plasma cannons have had a full charge, the season is far from over. San Francisco is still a game behind Philadelphia in the hunt for the no. 1 seed, and Detroit and Dallas remain in that mix. The 49ers have a rematch with the Seahawks next week and a huge Week 16 game against Baltimore coming ’round the mountain. They’re still likely to play the Eagles on the road, should they run into them again in the playoffs—and when they see the Eagles (or the Cowboys) again, they will see a motivated and embarrassed team with plenty of adjustments up its sleeves. The hay isn’t in the barn.

But this is the best 49ers offense we’ve seen in the Shanahan era, full stop. The prime Jimmy Garoppolo years had gaudy numbers, but defenses hadn’t caught up with the easy gimmicks yet. Defenses know the ins and outs of this system now, and it doesn’t matter. The 49ers don’t just have gimmicks; they have star talent at every position on offense, including a young quarterback who is improving every week on already impressive play. It’s tough to imagine anything stopping them except a terrible bounce on the merciless injury roulette wheel.

Is there any team you’d like to play less right now than the 49ers?

The Little Things

It’s the little things in football that matter the most—zany plays, small victories, and some laughs. Here’s where you can find them.

1. I DON’T KNOW what refereeing is

The state of NFL officiating deserves a much longer and more nuanced look than is possible in this column. Any take on refereeing given within 24 hours of a game (including this one) is unavoidably held prisoner by the moment and is not given with a sober mind. I will provide that sober take on some future day.

What in heaven’s name was going on at the end of Chiefs-Packers? The Patrick Mahomes unnecessary roughness call was made by an official far away from the play and thrown even though Mahomes was still in bounds at the time of the hit. It happened on the Chiefs sideline, and you don’t even see them call for a flag!

The next play was a called scoop ’n’ score overturned by review that also had a personal foul penalty that disqualified Isiah Pacheco, and I don’t even want to get into that. The play after that …

This league calls the silliest defensive pass interferences. Terrible underthrows in which the receiver makes no effort to catch the ball and only flounders through contact are rewarded with a spot foul. Uncatchable balls are routinely ignored. And this—a piggyback ride—went unflagged.

The subsequent plays included a clock stoppage when the receiver was moving backward on his way out of bounds (should have been a running clock) and a Hail Mary that had a defensive pass interference (though, to be fair, every Hail Mary does).

The Packers deserved this win. They’re 6-6, having knocked off the Lions and Chiefs in recent weeks. I think they’re going to the playoffs, and rightfully so.

But I don’t like watching games in which I have no idea how the officiating will go. As a regular gambler on football, I really don’t like it. The NFL is playing with real fire by letting the quality of officiating continue to deteriorate while also openly partnering with multiple U.S. sportsbooks.

Imagine an end-of-game sequence like this one in the AFC championship game with millions upon millions of dollars on the line. Spooky stuff.

Wait! Sorry, hang on. I just remembered. This was whistled dead for forward progress in Texans-Broncos?! Are you kidding me?!

OK. Done now.

2. ANDREW VAN GINKEL, up to the plate

I can’t imagine the average NFL fan is super dialed in on Van Ginkel right now, but he’s one of the most important players to watch over the next few weeks. Star Dolphins pass rusher Jaelan Phillips popped his Achilles against the Jets in heartbreaking fashion, and to fill those enormous shoes, Miami is relying heavily on Van Ginkel.

Van Ginkel has been almost exclusively a defensive lineman for most of his career, but under new defensive coordinator Vic Fangio this year, the Dolphins have experimented with playing him off the ball and in space. Against the Commanders, in the Dolphins’ first game without Phillips, Van Ginkel played no box snaps for only the fourth time this season, and he produced early, with a pick-six and what should have been recorded as a sack in the first half.

The Dolphins defense continues to be one of the best in the league now that it has the intricate Fangio system under its belt. If it can survive the Phillips injury, it’ll remain a force alongside that explosive offense come playoff time.

3. BEATING YOUR DIVISION RIVAL with the same play they almost beat you with

Late in the fourth quarter, the Tennessee Titans tied the game against the Indianapolis Colts with this Will Levis touchdown throw to DeAndre Hopkins.

The design on this throw is cool. The Titans are bluffing a typical pick route—the inside receiver runs to the flat, and the outside receiver runs the slant. The defensive backs accordingly switch responsibilities—but then Hopkins suddenly breaks back inside, and the outside corner is nowhere near close enough to affect the catch point. Excellent design.

The Titans would fail to take the lead when they missed the extra point, and this game would go to overtime. Down three and in need of a touchdown to win it, here’s the concept the Colts dialed up.

That look at all familiar?

4. THE CHARGES against those who willingly watched Jets-Falcons or Chargers-Patriots

Six months of community service and a $5,000 fine. I don’t care if you needed someone to have a great fantasy day to make the playoffs. You better have been born in New York, Atlanta, San Diego, or the greater New England area to have tuned in to these games.

If you or someone you know willingly watched these games, please reach out to me, and I will perform a citizen’s arrest.

The Zag: The College Football Playoff Committee Got It Right

I tend to be a little contrarian. It’s not so much a personal choice as it is an occupational hazard. Here’s where I’ll plant my flag.

OK, so this isn’t an NFL take. But the 2023-24 Selection Committee officially named the four teams for this year’s College Football Playoff, and everyone is furious, so here we go.

These are the four best teams in college football, according to the committee. That sentence was very carefully written, even though at first brush it looks banal. “Four best teams in college football,” is very different from “four most deserving teams in college football.”

The most deserving teams in college football are the teams that had the winningest seasons. Such teams include Washington and Michigan—undefeated power-conference champions who made this year’s playoff. But that designation would also include Florida State, the undefeated ACC champion who was left outside of the playoff.

Florida State was left out for a simple, obvious, and very painful reason: their starting quarterback, Jordan Travis, is out for the rest of the season with a devastating leg injury. Travis, who was squarely in the Heisman race, is one of the best quarterbacks in college football. He is far from the only NFL-caliber player on the Seminoles—WRs Keon Coleman and Johnny Wilson; edge rusher Jared Verse; running back Trey Benson. But Travis plays the most important position on the field, and without him—or even backup Tate Rodemaker, who missed the ACC title game with a concussion—Florida State is not nearly as good of a team.

Were it the committee’s job to put the four most deserving teams into the playoff, they would have put Florida State in. But that’s not their job—and if that were the objective of the College Football Playoff, there would not be a committee at all. Rather, there would be an algorithm. All undefeated conference champions would get into the playoff, ranked by strength of schedule. Behind them, all one-loss conference champions would get in, ranked by head-to-head record and then by strength of schedule. It would not even be a little bit hard to do this.

Why, then, has college football adopted a closed-door committee to generate a heuristic ranking? Well, for one, it’s preferable that the best teams get in over the most deserving, because the playoff games will likely be better. For another, it acknowledges that football always comes back to watching the games and making your own judgments—for as many stats as I love to use, it’s a hard sport for stats to encapsulate. But much, much more importantly, is this: it creates debate.

It is unbelievably fun to be angry about things. Perilously so, in fact. It’s tempting to just hop on Twitter—err, X, I suppose—and do it all the time. The regionality and tribalism of college football have always hinged on that reality: that everyone should have at least some argument for their team, and accordingly convince themselves that everyone is out to get them, digging their heels further and further into a rabid fandom the likes of which the NFL barely touches.

So the committee put Alabama, a one-loss conference champion, in above Florida State, a zero-loss conference champion, because Alabama is a better team right now than Florida State by their collective judgment. I’m inclined to agree. You can disagree if you like, and you can yell at me on Twitter as well. You can tell me the committee is intellectually dishonest, because a true interpretation of “four best teams” would have almost certainly included Georgia over Texas or Washington—and I can see that point crystal clear. It’s a frustrating system—and that’s the point.

I feel horrible for Florida State fans and players, all of whom deserved a bid for the national championship and lost it entirely on terrible injury luck. There’s nothing I can say to make that better.

But the committee got it right.

(Mostly Real) Awards

I’ll hand out some awards. Most of them will be real. Some of them won’t be.

That Young Man Can Play Award: Arizona Cardinals TE Trey McBride

Tight end is a famously challenging position for young players to learn. Rookie tight ends often end up taking a de facto redshirt year by default. Such was the case in 2022 for McBride, who essentially didn’t play until Zach Ertz got injured, ultimately ending the year with 265 yards on 29 catches.

In the last six weeks of this season, McBride has 41 catches for 440 yards and two scores. No tight end has more receptions; George Kittle has one more yard.

McBride has quickly become a favorite target of franchise quarterback Kyler Murray, and with wide receiver Marquise Brown approaching free agency, McBride is establishing himself as the primary target in this offense overall. In Sunday’s 24-10 win over the Steelers, McBride had eight catches for 89 yards and a touchdown, and led the Cardinals with nine targets. Stock dramatically up for the younger player.

Offensive Rookie of the Year (of the Week): Detroit Lions TE Sam LaPorta

Everything I just wrote up there about rookie tight ends not producing? Toss that out.

LaPorta has been a godsend for the Detroit Lions. They desperately needed a viable second target to play foil to Amon-Ra St. Brown, and they got more than they bargained for with their second-round pick tight end. After a nine-catch, 140-yard performance in a win over the Saints, LaPorta has 679 yards through 12 games—that total already puts him seventh on the post–Super Bowl leaderboard for rookie tight ends. At 56.6 yards per game, he’s on pace for 962 yards, which would make him only the second rookie in the Super Bowl era to clear 900 receiving yards—Kyle Pitts, who has the record at 1,026 yards, is very much within range.

The Very Much in the Playoff Race Award: The Los Angeles Rams

Don’t look now, but the Rams have a top-10 offense. Sixth in success rate, seventh in EPA per drive. And they’ve been dealing with injuries to key players like Cooper Kupp and Kyren Williams. The obvious things to highlight in this offensive surge are the superlative play of Matthew Stafford, who remains a fearless gunslinger despite his age and injury history, and the emergence of Puka Nacua, who had 139 yards from scrimmage and a score in the Rams’ 36-19 win over the Browns.

One unheralded, but critical key to note: the play of the offensive line. The Rams snagged two new starting guards this offseason: rookie Steve Avila in the second round of the draft, and Kevin Dotson late in training camp via trade with the Steelers. Both have been lights-out, while longtime backup Alaric Jackson (responsible for the best inexplicable screenshot of Sunday’s slate) is holding his own at left tackle.

The Rams have a proven formula on offense and a young defense that’s getting better by the week. They aren’t built like a true contender, but I’d wager they’re a tough out in January.

The Very Much Not Really in the Playoff Race Award: The Pittsburgh Steelers/Cleveland Browns

I simply cannot take 2023 Joe Flacco seriously. He didn’t even play that poorly—for a while there, the Browns were keeping pace with the Rams!—but the Browns are on their fourth starting quarterback, and it’s a player even the Jets passed on. I do not fear this team.

I also cannot take 2023 Mitchell Trubisky seriously, despite the fact that Kenny Pickett’s ankle injury means I must watch him play the New England Patriots on Thursday Night Football—truly, the most cursed matchup to ever grace that revered slot. The Steelers hope Pickett will be out only a few weeks, but I’m not sure Trubisky is good enough to keep the Steelers alive in this dense AFC playoff race during Pickett’s absence.

With the Steelers and Browns facing dire quarterbacking situations, there’s more room now for some AFC hopefuls. The Texans and Colts, surely. The Broncos as well. Dare I say … the Bills?

Next Ben Stats

What it sounds like: Next Gen Stats, but I get to make them up.

1: That’s how many punts the Colts actually blocked on Sunday

The national media is lying to you! It’s sensationalizing the numbers! It’d have you believe the Colts blocked two punts against the Titans this Sunday—consecutive punts, in fact. But it is a lie!

Here is their one punt block, courtesy of a wonderful rush by Nick Cross.

As you can see in this replay, Titans punter Ryan Stonehouse actually does make contact with the ball moments before driving it directly into the oncoming Cross. (Cool football nerd moment: This rush was designed based off of film study of the Titans’ punt protection this season. Not dumb luck—schemed up!)

The second “punt block,” however, was anything but!

This, my dear friends, is a forced fumble because Stonehouse never made contact with the ball. Cornerback Troy Brown knocks the ball away from Stonehouse on the drop, not the kick. This ball was never punted, but rather fumbled by the Titans and recovered by the Colts.

The media would have you believe we just saw the 30th game with multiple blocked punts for a single team. Ha!

3: That’s how many games NFL teams have lost this year while allowing their opponent to score 10 or fewer points. The Patriots have all three losses.

This is not a Next Ben Stat—rather, it’s a Next Jason Starrett Stat; he really stumbled across a banger.

You want to know the absolute worst bit? Those three losses … are the Patriots’ past three games: 10-6 to the Colts in London, 10-7 to the Tommy DeVito Giants last week, and this 6-0 travesty at home against the Chargers. The Patriots defense has given up 26 points over the past three games. They’re third by success rate and second by EPA per drive in that stretch. And for their effort, nothing: 0-3. A new coaching staff and a new quarterback (perhaps selected with the second pick, which the Patriots now own) almost inarguably await.

The post The Scorching Learn, Week 13: The San Francisco 49ers Are Again to Peak Type appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

photo: Stevo Rood

***

In May, Jack Casady and Jorma Kaukonen issued a statement regarding the future of their musical partnership. More than five decades after they first performed together as Hot Tuna, they announced that their fall Going Fishing Tour would represent their final electric performances for the foreseeable future.

However, fans took heart in the knowledge that the longtime friends would continue to appear together in the acoustic setting as Hot Tuna, which they have done since 1969. Indeed, as Kaukonen posted on his blog, “It is still our plan to continue in our original duo format. We are not retiring from touring, but the Electric lineup of this long-lived incarnation is going fishing for a while. The road may not go on forever, but the destination is still beyond the horizon.”

Casady, Kaukonen and drummer Justin Guip recently wrapped up three weeks of shows, a number of which featured Steven Bernstein on trumpet. In December, Electric Hot Tuna will reconvene at the Fillmore in San Francisco, a place of deep significance for Casady and Kaukonen, who first took flight there with Jefferson Airplane before they set a new course as Hot Tuna. Then it will be on to the Paramount Theatre in Denver to close out the run.

As he considers the full sweep of his creative existence in Hot Tuna, Kaukonen offers, “Whatever the moment requires from us has always been exciting and it still is. We’ve never tried to script things. Playing this music is magical and we continue to revel in it.”

Casady adds, “As we listen to each other and react to the way the dynamics shift and change, we’re still smiling and having a lot of fun. Every time we go onstage, we give a true rendition to the audience. We don’t play songs that aren’t important to us today and we’re not going to give them what we played last night. We’ve always tried to be honest, and I think we’ve been successful at that.”

What prompted the decision to step away from Electric Hot Tuna shows?

JORMA KAUKONEN: I’m going to be 83 years old this year, and I’m fortunate because I’m very healthy, but an electric show just physically beats the piss out of you. At the end of the evening, I don’t want to see people.

I still enjoy doing it because any time I get to play music is a great thing. But after spending two and a half hours on stage holding a heavy guitar, this old man’s ready to go to bed.

JACK CASADY: We will still be touring a lot with Acoustic Hot Tuna, as we have all along. We’ve toured as Acoustic Hot Tuna from the very beginning, as a duo with an acoustic guitar and a bass. We’ve also toured in the electric format, which is basically adding amplifiers, a drummer and a combination of people throughout Hot Tuna’s electric career.

We decided recently, though, that there’s only so much time and only so much energy. Over the last 10 years, we’ve been working with Acoustic Hot Tuna and really just enjoying that world. Jorma is one of the most gifted and sensitive acoustic fingerpicking guitar players that I’ve ever heard. He is not an electric guitar player playing unplugged, where he does the same licks he does on the electric guitar and plays rhythm on the acoustic. So that’s the world where we’ve really been making some interesting strides lately.

The two of you first played together in a Washington, D.C. basement in 1958. As you think back on that, what comes to mind?

JORMA: I met Jack through his older brother, Chick. Jack’s three years younger than me, and his older brother was a year older than me. For some reason, we’ve always had an unintimidating friendship. For lack of a better way to put it—my wife always tells me not to use metaphors like this, but I can’t think of another one— there wasn’t that sort of a swinging dick thing where there’s competition with your buddies. We’ve never had that.

We don’t have band meetings. We’ve respected each other as men and as artists and have thoroughly enjoyed the dialogue that we have when we play music.

There’s that picture floating around of him, me and Warren Smith playing drums back then in Charlotte Harbour’s basement. It was a long time ago, so I can’t remember how long we played and I don’t remember the setlist. What I do remember was that we got about $5 apiece for that gig and we were able to go to the Hot Shoppe—which is a local drive-in restaurant—and get a hamburger afterwards.

Over the years, aside from the fact that various other outside realities have impinged themselves upon us, not much has changed.

JACK: My older brother was an avid record collector, as was my father. He was an audiophile and belonged to the American Jazz Society, so every month we would get something in a brand-new format, an LP—a long-playing record, as opposed to the 78. That’s how ancient I am. They were collections of various jazz artists.

So I started listening early on to Bix Beiderbecke, Eddie Condon and all the ‘20s jazz groups—a lot of stuff from New Orleans. I loved that small combo interplay with all the instruments. Then at the same time—1956, ‘57, ‘58—all the great rock-and-roll and R&B was going on—Little Richard, Hank Ballad & The Midnighters, Ray Charles, Jackie Wilson and Chuck Willis. You also had rockabilly with Gene Vincent and Buddy Holly, as well as the jazz world with John Coltrane, Eric Dolphy, Roland Kirk and all the people that I devoured as much as possible.

I met Jorma around 1957, when I was 13 and a half. He played guitar and sang a little bit and we formed a friendship through music, which would have been highly unlikely if the music wasn’t there, because that’s a pretty large age gap, from 14 to 17. Usually that’s not who you hang out with. But we formed a little band for a year and a half while he finished high school and I finished junior high, playing cover songs of Johnny Cash, Buddy Holly and things like that.

Later on, when Jorma went off to Antioch College, he was sort of reborn as a fingerpicking guitar player after he learned that from Ian Buchanan, a schoolmate. Meanwhile, I started playing in a lot of bands in D.C. One of my good buddies was Danny Gatton, who was a year younger than me and a wunderkind on the guitar. We traded off in each other’s bands.

So as I finished high school, I found myself working three, four nights a week in clubs with the adults, and then I’d be in a homeroom with the kids, so to speak. There was this sort of dual world going on for me.

Jorma, when you invited Jack to join Jefferson Airplane on bass, you had never heard him play that instrument. What does that say about him, not even necessarily as a musician?

JORMA: Well, he’s the kind of guy who’s a perfectionist. So whatever he’s going to do, it’s going to be done well, whether it’s fixing a piece of plumbing, putting some flooring into his house, winterizing his RV, walking his dog or playing music. I knew that when I brought him out to play bass. I’d never heard him play bass, but I’d heard him play guitar and we’d listened to a lot of music together. I just knew he was going to be good. I didn’t know he was going to be that good, but I knew he was going to be good.

Jack, what did that invitation mean to you?

JACK: I was stagnating in Washington at the time. I played night after night for years. When I was 16, I really started working the club circuit, but it was all other people’s music. One night, it’d be rhythm and blues—I’d be playing Ray Charles and Bobby “Blue” Bland in bands that had three saxes, a trumpet and a Wurlitzer piano. Then I’d be doing a country gig or a rockabilly gig. I was doing all these genres of music, but it was never my own stuff, it was always other people’s stuff. Your stuff was never desired by the club owners, so it was really stifling.

I was in college from ‘63-‘65, and Jorma moved out to the West Coast, so we didn’t seen each other a lot for a bit. We used to see each other up in New York City when he was at Antioch. He would do a work furlough where he worked three months in New York and then would go back to Stevo Rood school. I’d take a train up and we’d go to Gerde’s Folk City and see Reverend Gary Davis and Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee, and all the blues and folk greats of the early ‘60s.

So when he said he’d just joined a folk-rock band, I was in shock. I saw Jorma as a purist on the acoustic guitar. So we laughed and he said, “Yeah, it’s really great. What are you doing?” I said, “I’m going to school, staying out of the army, playing gigs as best I can.” I think he knew that I played bass, but he had never heard me.

When I got out to California, it changed my life completely. I found myself in a band where, even if we did songs that were recorded by other people, we did them our own way. I was responsible for all the music that I made on the bass guitar and held accountable for it.

As I understand it, Hot Tuna began with the two of you playing acoustic in hotel rooms during Jefferson Airplane tours, until one night when Paul Kantner suggested you perform an acoustic tune during an Airplane set.

JACK: That’s just what musicians do. They do it for themselves. You find musicians to play with, then you sit down and play.

Jefferson Airplane had all those talented people for its seven years of existence. We did extraordinary things with that format and even had a couple of hits with the second album.

At the same time, that wasn’t a format for the kind of music we were just beginning to touch upon, drawing out of the more traditional fingerpicking blues and folk worlds that Jorma was coming from. I was coming from a world where I played a lot more R&B and a little bit of jazz, and we were putting those two things together.

We just loved the music. I loved Reverend Gary Davis, I listened to all that stuff. I started out as a guitar player and then moved to bass.

It was just natural to sit down in a nice, quiet environment and hear the acoustic guitar. There’s not a huge amount of volume if you’re not thrashing on the guitar as a rhythm instrument when you’re playing individual notes.

So we played to that atmosphere, and within that atmosphere, we started to discover a lot of the subtleties of the instrument that you don’t hear when it’s piped through an amplifier.

Jorma, can you talk a bit about Reverend Gary Davis and his impact on your music?

JORMA: He has been influential in my life in a lot of profound ways, although I never studied with him. I discovered him through my mentor, who has long since passed away, Ian Buchanan. So, because he studied with the Rev., I got a chance to meet the Reverend a couple of times.

It didn’t make sense for me to play the way he did, though. He played with the two fingers of his right hand and I use three. But there was something so joyful and creative about his playing. It was incredibly sophisticated harmonically, very advanced. He was not a typical blues gospel player of his time, but what he did made sense to me. The Holy Trinity of those guys—the big dog Piedmont players—are Blind Arthur Blake, Blind Boy Fuller and Reverend Davis.

I was never intimidated by his playing, as some people might’ve been, because I never had the skill to mirror other people’s playing. But I’m always there to learn. So while I’m not really a Reverend Gary Davis-style player, his spirit courses through my playing in a lot of ways.

Was there a specific moment that led to the debut of Electric Hot Tuna?

JORMA: There were various incarnations long before it was called Hot Tuna—before we actually said, “Hey, look, we’ve got a band.” When the Airplane first started, we rehearsed eight hours a day. I loved that and I was learning so much about the electric guitar. Then as the band began to age a bit, and as some of the members started families, there just wasn’t that kind of passion anymore for being on the road that Jack and I had.

So in order to fill that void, we had a number of lineups that were almost Airplane, but not quite. We did stuff with Joey Covington, Marty Balin, my brother [Peter] and my buddy Paul Ziegler. We just liked to play.

Then as the coffee grounds began to settle to the bottom, it started to distill itself into a concept that became Hot Tuna. That being said, Hot Tuna has mutated many times over the years, but the core is always Jack and myself.

JACK: We had been playing electric all along. The trick was how to get some of that fingerpicking style of the songs into the electric format. Jorma worked with heavier gauge strings and Stratocaster guitars for the fingerpicking elements.

A lot of the ragtime-y songs lent themselves to a backbeat, which is what they had been doing in New Orleans. But we were doing them in our style, which was more of the Piedmont fingerpicking style that people hadn’t heard in that format. Usually, you couldn’t hear acoustic guitar fingerpicking with a set of drums.

So we transformed some of this stuff, where you could play it with drums in an electric format in front of a large group of people and they would get it.

In Jorma’s blog, he points out that the two of you have probably played 15,000 shows. What’s your reaction to that?

JACK: Well, the 15,000 shows is just part of the whole deal. I’ve always been working on the tone or the melody of songs, and the place where I would experiment was at a show, where I had somebody else to play with me. That’s where I would get another chance to try to open up the door and enter that special world.

I’ve taught for 20-some years at Jorma’s Fur Peace Guitar Camp, and people will ask, “You guys have played so much together, do you even have to rehearse?” Well, it’s the complete opposite. To set up for this tour, we’ve done more rehearsing, more preparation than we ever have before.

It’s kind of like a fighter who spars with a partner in the afternoon. You have to keep your muscles all functioning and keep up to speed. That way, we remain aggressive in our music and approach, so it’s never lackadaisical.

That’s because when we’re onstage, that is the night. You can’t get caught up in what’s happened before. Can you open the door in that special space you’ve got and enter into that room without being distracted by life? If so, then you can get down to work with each other and see what you can discover.

Since this is the final electric tour, what impact has that had on creating setlists?

JORMA: To me, each set is kind of like a song, so I like to have a flow of dynamics. There’s a number of ways to look at the dynamics. One of them is obviously the fingerpicking stuff, which I do on the Chet Atkins SST, as opposed to the balls to the wall rock-and-roll stuff, which is on the Gibson ES-345. I don’t want to berate people’s ears too much without having that flow with the sonic dynamic.

Another thing is that so many of my songs are in Drop D—the king of all alternative tunings—and they have a definite character to them. So I always have a little section in the flow of a set that has at least two Drop D songs together—not just because I don’t have to change tunings, which I can do but I hate to do onstage, but because sonically, it gives people something interesting to listen to rather than the same sort of emotional intensity.

Normally, because we know a lot of songs, I’ll rotate all kinds of songs through the setlist, but because this is our series of final electric gigs, I wanted to be sure that we could really nail every one of these songs every night. I also kept in mind that we’d have Steve on a bunch of the dates. That is not to say we’re going to duplicate every note and every arrangement because that’s not how we play. But I wanted the underpinning to be rock solid, so if we had the opportunity to wander artistically afield, we could still be supported.

Most of the songs we have played for many years, but my quasi-humorous take on it is that we still do these songs because I’m still trying to get them right. The excitement for us, and hopefully for some of the audience members, is that as we’ve learned more about music, we have different takes. It remains a work in progress.

On this tour, you have been performing “Invitation” and “I Don’t Want to Go” for the first time since the mid-‘70s. How did that come about?

JACK: We’d been playing around with “Invitation” for a couple years to get it back up and running. I was working on “Invitation” at home and it’s on the same album as “I Don’t Want to Go.” My stepdaughter, Redbird Stanley, once told me that was her favorite song. It had something to do with when she was in high school and there was something she didn’t want to do. She said she played that song endlessly, much to her mother’s chagrin. So I called Jorma a few weeks before the tour started and I said, “Can you listen and see if we can put it together?” So he did and we did.

We played “Invitation” back in the day, but we hardly ever played “I Don’t Want to Go.” I haven’t used effects in a long time, but I’ve been playing around with them for one of the opening lines on bass.

So we were able to add two songs that we hadn’t done in years.

The other Electric Hot Tuna mainstay for over a decade has been Justin Guip on drums. Can you talk about his contributions?

JORMA: We’ve played with Justin longer than any drummer in our lives. I met Justin in 2009 when I was recording River of Time at Levon’s Studio. Larry Campbell was producing the session. We became friends and companions on a lot of different levels—our wives and kids like each other.

We don’t keep somebody on retainer— we work when we work. So Justin has made himself available and kept himself current with what we’re doing for well over a decade.

We love playing with him. His percussion sensibilities are awesome, and we love hanging out with him, because when you’re out on the road traveling in a bus, the things that irritate you about your friends become apparent after about three days. He doesn’t do anything that irritates me, and I hope I don’t irritate him.

Steven Bernstein takes the music in a lot of unexpected directions. How did he come to join you on certain dates?

JORMA: I like playing with people who make things interesting. I met Steve up at Levon’s Rambles a number of years ago. We later did a tour with Little Feat where they basically had the Ramble horn section with them. Steve was kind of ramrodding that outfit, writing the charts. We were on the road for a number of weeks, and he’s a great guy to hang out with. So we just got to talking and I figured it would be really fun to turn a guy loose on our songs who has his kind of musical and intellectual prowess, to see what happens.

I told him: “You need to know the songs so you’re aware of where they go but I don’t want to rehearse stuff. I don’t want to write parts out. I just want you to get in there and blow and see what happens.” He is the guy for that, which is what makes it so much fun.

At the risk of sounding fatuous and self-serving, when he plays on “Hesitation Blues” with us, I could be in some speakeasy who knows how many years ago. He just brings that to the table. When we turn him loose on a song like “Invitation” or one of these jam tunes like “Bow-Legged Woman” and he plays that slide trumpet through a wah-wah pedal, who would’ve thought of such a thing? He can be as traditional as a Dixieland master or as out as Pharaoh Sanders.

You’re returning to San Francisco to play at the Fillmore. What does that venue represent to you?

 JORMA: The Fillmore has been hugely important to musicians of my generation and down the line. But a year before the whole San Francisco music thing started to happen for guys like me, I went with my ex-wife to the Fillmore, which was in a Black neighborhood over in the Western Addition. I saw this friend of mine from Oakland named Johnny Talbot with his band Johnny Talbot & De Thangs playing a show with Bobby “Blue” Bland and B.B. King. Those guys were heroes to me, and hearing them in person was unbelievable. Then a scant year or two later, when the Fillmore became a dance hall, it was very exciting for me to be able to play there.

In the beginning, when we first started playing the Fillmore, the stage was maybe two-and-a-half-feet tall. The sound system was barely adequate. Now, of course, it’s a high-tech performing venue that we all love. So there’s a lot of tradition there. For me, that goes way beyond the posters— although I love the posters—and I’m sure I’m not the only one who feels that way.

JACK: Sonically, the Fillmore is just like a big warm blanket around you. The sound in that hall is a part of me because we started our career in that hall with Jefferson Airplane. So I’ve played that hall since 1966 and we look forward to coming back there. I’ll be driving up from Los Angeles, where I live now, and we’re going to play two days there, then jump out to Colorado, do a show there, and that will pretty much wrap up the year and the Electric Hot Tuna.

The post Scorching Tuna: The Final Electrical Waltz appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

• Gabriella Cervantes, 8, (left) is dressed as “Captain Phasma,” while Michelle Carr is ready to fall down the rabbit hole as Alice in Wonderland. Both are from Riverside and were attending Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Ready to go to Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland are (l-r) Martina Caviares, 12, Taylor Caviares, 11, Sabrina Shettler, 4, Megan Shetler and Jesse Shetler. All came to town from Park City, Utah.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• The castaways from Gilligan’s Island were getting ready to go on a three-hour tour of Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland they are (l-r) Laura Maestas as Mary Ann, Diana Maestas as Ginger, Krystal Maestas as the Professor, Steven Trusty as millionaire Thurston Howell III, Ashley Trusty as “Lovey” Howell, his wife, David Maestas as Gilligan, and Jeff Maestas as the Skipper. The whole group came down from Barstow for the event.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• The Johnson family drove down from Las Vegas for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. They are Kris (left), Chelsea and dressed as Thomas the Tank Engine is three-year-old Keagan.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• These three ghouls came from Salt Lake City for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. They are the Amatt family (l-r) Heidi, Jason and Michael, 11.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Here we have the Stauss family in town from Phoenix for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. They are (l-r) Brayden, 8, Missy and Olivia, 8.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• These three magical ladies were at Disneyland’s Mickey’s Halloween Party to get some magical treats. They are (l-r) Cheryl Brothers of Los Angeles, Pam Mouser and Brenda Zebley, both from Bakersfield.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Playing a rather tough princess at Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland is Tom Coleman from Fort Dodge, Iowa.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Here we have Bert and Mary Poppins on a Jolly Holiday at Disneyland for Mickey’s Halloween Party. They are actually Tim and Brit Skalland, from Sacramento. This was their third visit. During their second visit, at a previous Halloween party at the park, Tim got down on his knees near Snow White Grotto wishing well and proposed to Brit.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Visiting Disneyland for Mickey’s Halloween Party are Emily Moffat dressed as Rey from “Star Wars – The Force Awakens. She is holding 10-month-old Violet Moffat, who is dressed as C3PO from the Star Wars movies.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• These superheroes made sure there were no villains around at Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. They are actually the Morel Family from Rancho Cucamonga.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Snow White and the Huntsman were visiting Disneyland during Mickey’s Halloween Party. They are actually Darlene Juarez of Colton and George San Martin of Riverside.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• This precious little fairy is Adrian Estrella, 2, from Los Angeles. She flew in on her wings to visit Disneyland during Mickey’s Halloween Party.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Visiting Disneyland for Mickey’s Halloween Party are Lauryn Salgado, 6, dressed as Sally from “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” and Benjamin Salgado, 7, dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog. They are from Ontario, CA.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Mari Farr, from Louisville, Kentucky, is Peter Pan. Behind her is Peter Pan’s shadow, otherwise known as Natasha Holmquist, from Bellingham, Washington. The friends like to visit Disneyland and Mickey’s Halloween Party.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Katie Meyere (left) and Joseph Meyere from Bountiful, Utah, like to visit Disneyland and came dressed just for Mickey’s Halloween Party.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• The Tyler Family came to Disneyland from Las Vegas, just for Mickey’s Halloween Party.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• In a slightly mod version of the Mad Hatter is Sara Velasquez at Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland. She might even be attending an unbirthday party.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Tilly, in the box office of Disneyland’s Main Street Cinema, puts on her Halloween themed finest for Halloween season.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland is always a chance for children of all ages to dress up in costumes and go trick-or-treating.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

• Ready for Mickey’s Halloween Party at Disneyland is the Goldberg Family who came to town for the event from Las Vegas. They are (l-r) Danielle, Luke, Zack and Neil.

  in Anaheim on Wednesday, October 19, 2016. (Photo by Mark Eades, Orange County Register/SCNG)

“We like to schedule our visit just to come to dress up and go trick-or-treating,” said Danielle Goldberg of Las Vegas.
She was dressed as the bride from the Haunted Mansion, while her husband Neil was dressed as the dead groom. Their kids, Luke and Zack, were wearing costumes, too.

Attending the separately ticketed event was mostly known to locals, but as the event grew, many from out of town decided they wanted to experience it, too – some in a special way.

At Wednesday’s party were Tim and Brit Skalland from Sacramento. It was their third time. They met during their first trip to Mickey’s Halloween Party and started dating. During their second visit, they were near the Wishing Well in the Snow White Grotto area when Tim got down on a knee and proposed. She accepted. This was their third visit, but the first one as a married couple.

They, of course, came dressed in costume. He was dressed as Bert, the chimney sweep from the movie “Mary Poppins,” and she came dressed as the title character.

“It’s practically perfect in every way,” she said.

The party even attracts large groups. One group of seven were in town from Barstow, and were dressed as the characters from the television show “Gilligan’s Island.”

“We’re here for a three-hour tour,” said Jeff Maestas, who was dressed as the Skipper.

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The post Mickey’s Halloween Get together at Disneyland is a sizzling ticket for costume followers appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

Australian share opened in line with losses on Wall Street, after the latest US inflation data renewed bets that the Federal Reserve is not yet done lifting interest rates.

The S&P/ASX 200 dropped 50 points, or 0.7 per cent at open, to 7040.6. The All Ordinaries was also down 0.7 per cent.

Rate sensitive companies were sold off with real estate the worst performing of the 11 sectors to be down 1.5 per cent. Utilities stocks were the only group to move higher in early trade to be up 0.3 per cent.

Meanwhile, the local currency plunged 1.6 per cent overnight below US64¢ and is trading at around US63.13¢ with the US dollar set to post its best session in five weeks. Looking ahead, CPI and PPI from China will be released just after midday.

What happened overnight

The US sharemarket turned lower, with the S&P 500 down 0.6 per cent, after US core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, rose 0.3 per cent last month. Headline prices were 0.4 per cent higher. Both metrics were forecast to rise 0.3 per cent.

The year-on-year growth rate held at 3.7 per cent, whereas economists had forecast a drop to 3.6 per cent.

“I think the [Fed’s policy committee] would look at this and still conclude that underlying inflationary pressures remain too hot for their liking,” Scotiabank’s Derek Holt said.

The yield on the US 10-year note surged 13 basis points to 4.69 per cent at 4.30pm in New York. The two-year yield, more sensitive to rate moves, reached 5.07 per cent, and the 30-year yield was at 4.86 per cent.

Stocks on the move

Pact Group fell 1.4 per cent after billionaire Raphael Geminder’s plan to take his struggling packaging company off the ASX hit a major speed bump. Shareholders being urged to reject the deal following an independent review.

ResMed is trading 2.4 per cent lower and near its 52-week low following a note from brokers at RBC, which that downgraded stock to perform from outperform.

Bega Cheese is up 1.6 per cent after analysts at Bell Potter upgraded the foods business to a buy rating.

Perpetual is up 1.4 per cent after its assets under management held steady in the September quarter, in a sign flows may be stabilising for the struggling funds management firm.

Harvey Norman shares, which trade ex-dividend as of today, are down 3.9 per cent.

Fletcher Building will brief investors and analysts later today to provide an update on its Western Australian plumbing issues. Shares remain in a trading halt and last traded at $4.45

Read Before the Bell here.

The post ASX drops after sizzling US CPI; Atlassian to purchase US Loom for $1.5b; Pact board say reject billionaire Geminder’s buyout appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

It turns out you don’t have to buy thousand-dollar tickets, endure security and fly more than 12 hours to journey from San Francisco to Moscow—you can simply visit Archimedes Banya in the Bayview. 

The tastefully austere gray palace at 748 Innes Ave. could have been airlifted from Novgorod or Novosibirsk: the apathetic front desk attendants, the socialist-realist murals in shades of gray and yellow, the disorientingly dark-walled tavern full of pelmeni and borscht. 

But the most authentic component is the banya process, one that includes steam rooms so hot they glue contact lenses to eyeballs, a plunge pool so cold it feels like melted ice and bundles of birch branches (venik) with which you can beat your fellow bathers. 

It works like this: You check in at the front desk, where you receive a bathrobe and a bracelet that serves as your locker key, and descend to the only space separated by sex in the sprawling complex. There, you change out of your clothes and retrieve the black plastic sandals and two crisp white towels waiting for you in your locker. 

The majority of bathers don’t choose to wear a swimsuit, so as you move into the banya itself you are greeted by skin—lots and lots of it. 

A man dunks under the waterfall in the cold plunge pool at Archimedes Banya in San Francisco’s Bayview. | Source: Courtesy Archimedes Banya

After showering, you move into the Russian sauna, or parilka, which distinguishes itself by a combination of high temperature with humidity that can be continuously upped by splashing water onto a stove clad with handmade tiles from Russia. A frigid cold plunge beckons sweaty bathers as they emerge glassy-eyed from the saunas, the cycle of alternating hot and cold allegedly a miracle cure (and broken up with breaks for beer and snacks in the upstairs lounge). 

“If you can talk, it’s not hot enough,” said one bather, repeating a saying he learned from Archimedes owner Mikhail Brodsky, whose name is tossed around as if he’s a guru on the top bench thronged with bare bodies. It is a Russian tradition as old as the banya itself to wear a woolen cap to protect your ears from the extreme heat (Russian babushki have also advanced other rationales, such as protecting your hair and not allowing the steam to escape your body).  

The naked arrangement can lead to some awkward moments. Offering a courtesy grin to a man emerging from a pool whose hardware is at eye level leaves you wondering about unintended connotations. A friendly chat with someone new can abruptly have heightened meaning when you recognize you are naked, talking to a stranger who is also naked. 

In a world full of nearly always-clothed bodies, it’s overwhelming to see so many body parts, especially since the men typically outnumber the women 9 to 1—and 9 out of 10 bathers choose to forego clothing. 

Archimedes Banya in San Francisco’s Bayview has a number of soaking pools. | Source: Courtesy Archimedes Banya

But something happens as you move through the banya cycles and your eyes adjust to the steam. Bodies are simply bodies, and the chatter starts to seem like what it is: casual. Plus, you are beginning to feel amazing, more relaxed than you can remember. A condition some have nicknamed “banya brain” has set in.  

There’s a tile in the hallway of steam rooms at Archimedes depicting a kerchiefed woman with plump breasts beating the back of an old man with that bundle of branches. “Banya is the second life,” the image reads in Russian, attesting to the centrality of the bathhouse in Russian culture. 

The banya is where business deals are done, as Viggo Mortensen immortalized for Western audiences in Eastern Promises. There’s nowhere to hide a weapon, and no way to wear a wire. You reveal your tattoos, which in the Russian criminal underworld declare allegiances and even your biography. It’s where the world turns topsy turvy and begins anew, as in the Academy Award-winning film Irony of Fate, which is shown every New Year’s Eve in Russia. In the movie, lovers accidentally exchange partners after a bathhouse visit, thanks to identical-looking communist-bloc buildings.

“It’s the idea that you open up your pores and sweat out all the evilness, all the nastiness,” said Ethan Pollock, author of Without the Banya We Would Perish: A History of the Russian Bathhouse and a professor of history at Brown University.  

“The banya is a social space that speaks to a Russian sense of leveling, of egalitarianism, and people’s outside identity is stripped bare,” Pollock said. 

A bundle of branches (venik) sits on a plunge pool at Archimedes Banya in San Francisco’s Bayview. | Source: Julie Zigoris/The Standard

In a world where we are constantly distracted, there’s a modern-day magic that happens at the banya, a contemporary parallel to that historic past. Freed from devices and with nothing to do but talk, you shed your props in the same way it’s been done for centuries throughout Russia. You lose your hangups and your concerns, your worries draining out of your oh-so-open pores. 

You’ll find languorous bodies scattered throughout the Archimedes complex that spans four levels and includes a cafe, spa, TV room and roof deck: bathrobed men snoozing on extra-wide easy chairs, beer drinkers stretched out in the café, bodies lounging beside the lukewarm pool. 

But the banya can also be brutal. 

“Bend over and brace your legs,” the bathhouse assistant said while preparing for an aromatherapy treatment on a recent Friday. She clutched bundles of birch and oak branches meant to improve circulation and increase heat. The bodies on the top bench instantly complied, and the woman—in a black midriff top and short shorts—walked down the row, beating the bare back of each bather. 

A bundle of branches (venik) soak in water at Archimedes Banya. | Source: Courtesy Archimedes Banya

She alternated between three scents—peppermint, bergamot and beer citrus—flexing her abs as she stood on the top and hottest bench to whip a towel through the air (a move that ups the temperature and steam even further that another bather nicknamed the “Misha-copter” in honor of the bathhouse owner).

“Happy Friday!” she called out, and the sweaty bathers burst into applause. 

The sauna can be an endurance competition. 

“Good ideas come to you when you’re sitting naked in a bathtub,” said Brodsky, the owner and founder of Archimedes, referring to the bathhouse’s namesake, a Greek mathematician who discovered the law of buoyancy while in his soaking tub. 

Brodsky himself received the nickname Archimedes at the famed Sanduny Baths in Moscow as a banya-obsessed Ph.D. student. Brodsky had first tried the banya when he was 19 years old in Western Siberia and was immediately hooked. 

“I am the Archimedes of the 21st century,” Brodsky said, noting they are both applied mathematicians. To most people in the bathhouse, Brodsky is simply “Misha,” the ruler of his bathhouse kingdom. In case there is any doubt, he sports a gray bathing cap that says “Boss.”

Mikhail Brodsky, owner and founder of Archimedes Banya in the Bayview, smiles at his bathhouse. | Source: Julie Zigoris/The Standard

He came to California in 1989 to work as a research professor at the University of California Berkeley and spent 11 years there before opening his bathhouse on New Year’s Eve in 2011 after more than a decade of work to realize his dream. He moved on from Berkeley to become the president of Oakland’s Lincoln University, where he still works today—while also visiting the banya twice a week. 

“The steam gives you energy and invigorates you,” he said, pointing out that at 72, he had just played a soccer game. He has become a student of world bathhouse cultures, and Archimedes represents not only the Russian tradition but a blend with Turkish and Finnish styles (there is a dry sauna and a traditional steam room on-site). 

The terrace at Archimedes Banya in the Bayview has a view of San Francisco. | Source: Julie Zigoris/The Standard

Archimedes continues to expand its offerings, with comedy nights and brunches, clothing optional rooftop yoga and international bathhouse tours. Most importantly, the banya is a social place, Brodsky said. 

It’s also the only co-ed clothing optional bathhouse in the world, according to him. 

“Everyone said it was crazy, that there was no way we could do it,” Brodsky said. “But San Francisco allowed it.” It’s one of the few differences from the Russian banya, where women are always separated from men. 

“You need to shock with a marketing tool,” he said. “And it’s worked.” 

The post The Temperature Is Scorching at Archimedes Bathhouse in San Francisco appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

San Francisco recorded its hottest day of the year on Wednesday, hitting 85 degrees. Oakland checked in at 87 degrees, above normal but just shy of Sunday’s high of 88.

Those are some of the unusual weather patterns that Bay Area coastal areas have experienced in recent days, with record warm ocean waters leading to more heat and unusual humidity on land.

A marine heat wave that was in the Pacific Northwest has been moving closer to San Francisco over the past few weeks, and the weather buoy at the San Francisco Bar, located just outside the Golden Gate, set a new daily water temperature record of 66.5 degrees Tuesday compared with the previous high of 64.2 degrees since 2007. Buoys in Point Reyes, Bodega Bay and Monterey Bay have also been close to or just over the daily records in recent weeks. 

“We’re at or near record-setting temperatures, but something like an El Niño is just as hot if not hotter,” said Andrew Leising, oceanographer at the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center. “It’s a matter of how long it lasts.”

Leising said recent readings have been high only for brief periods, and a cooling phase is coming soon. But, he added, current temperatures are probably comparable to those during “the Blob” in 2015, when a large marine heat wave lingered off the entire West Coast for over a year before the onset of a strong El Niño, which together disrupted the ecosystem and caused problems in the fishing industry. 

What is more remarkable now, Leising said, is that there have been similar small marine heat waves over the past several summers, during non-El Niño years.

“Year after year of this — that’s the part that’s unusual,” he said. “Something different is happening in the system than it has for the past 40 years.”

When warm waters move toward San Francisco, the typical summer fog gets disrupted and the marine layer breaks down. On Wednesday, a crippled marine layer allowed high temperatures along the coast to climb to the 70s and 80s, 10 to 20 degrees above normal, while inland areas were in the 90s, only about 5 degrees above August averages.

This unusually warm water has also kept San Francisco much warmer at night during the past week. Overnight lows have been in the upper 50s to low 60s, above the normal temperature of 55.6 degrees.

That’s unlikely to change much Wednesday night. The National Weather Service said low temperatures in neighborhoods east of Sutro Tower are expected to be in the low 60s, well above average for this time of year.

Not only were temperatures high around the city on Wednesday, but warm ocean temperatures also raised nearby humidity. The Oakland weather balloon Wednesday reported a new daily record dew point, which is a measure of atmospheric moisture.

“A lot of people are noticing it feeling a lot more muggy,” said weather service meteorologist Dalton Behringer. “It’s not unusual that we can have higher dew points this time of year … but we’re kind of in the upper realm of what we would usually see.”

The current coastal warmth is a stark contrast to earlier this summer, when a northwesterly wind pattern kept ocean temperatures and coastal areas much cooler. The weather service predicts a return of northwesterly winds this weekend, which will help cool both water and land temperatures in the short term. However, another bout of warmer water and land temperatures is possible in early September.

Reach Anthony Edwards: Anthony.Edwards@sfchronicle.com. Reach Tara Duggan: tduggan@sfchronicle.com; Twitter: @taraduggan

The post Heat ocean water impacted San Francisco’s sizzling climate appeared first on DAILY SAN FRANCISCO BAY NEWS.

“Don’t touch the wildlife,” officials say

Tourists risk their lives to take selfies and get close to wildlife. These people also risk the animal’s help. FOX Weather takes a look at some shocking examples and speaks to a wildlife expert about the problem.

SAUSALITO, California – The Marine Mammal Center, home of the world’s largest hospital for marine mammals, released new data Monday showing more than 25 percent of the animals rescued in 2022 were in distress due to negative interactions with humans and dogs. The center rescues animals along 600 miles of California’s northern and central coast.

The center said harassment of wildlife was a contributing or direct factor in more than 150 cases of marine mammals rescued and hospitalized last year.

Experts reported a rise in incidents of harassment from seals and sea lions along the coasts of northern and central California, as they warned the animals are facing increasing threats from humans and dogs.

In some severe cases, workers responded to dragged animals. In other cases, people tried to feed or pour water on seals and sea lions.

YELLOWSTONE TOURISTS PUT BABY MOOSE INTO CAR AND DRIVE IT TO POLICE STATION

Sionna, a female seal pup, was rescued at Bolinas Beach on April 26, 2022 by trained responders from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California, after she was picked up and placed on a surfboard, separating the captive animal from its mother. The animal was later released back into the wild after treatment at the center’s hospital (Joan Lasnie / KTVU FOX 2)

In one case, the center rescued a female seal pup named Sionna from Bolinas Beach in Marin County after someone picked her up and placed her on a surfboard, separating the dependent cub from her mother, the center said.

Animal keepers treated Sionna and later released her back into the wild.

BISON ATTACKS YELLOWSTONE TOURISTS WHO TRIED TO TOUCH IT

Sionna, a female seal pup, was treated and released into the wild by the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. (Joanne Lasnie © The Marine Mammal Center / KTVU FOX 2)

According to authorities, dogs were responsible for more than a quarter of all incidents of harassment.

“Specifically in the San Francisco Bay Area, the prominent examples of cases of harassment were the illegal picking up of seal pups in Marin County and the human and dog handling of young seals and sea lions in San Francisco and San Mateo Counties,” the center said in a press release .

The center detailed a case involving a stranded and injured puppy named Snowcone that its trained experts responded to at Shell Beach, Sonoma County in April 2022. Officials said two beachgoers illegally picked up the seal, who was young enough to nurse, and separated him from his mother.

Rescue workers found the seal had sustained a serious head injury resulting from a dog attack.

YELLOWSTONE OFFICIALS KILL a bison calf after they say the human ‘deliberately disturbed’ it.

Trained experts from the Marine Mammal Center trimmed Snowcone, a nursing male pup, on Shell Beach, Sonoma County, in April 2022 after he was illegally picked up by two beachgoers and separated from his mother. The animal died on the way to the center’s hospital, experts said. (The Marine Mammal Center / KTVU FOX 2)

“This incident likely occurred after the animal was taken from the established colony or breeding area to a portion of the beach with numerous off-leash dogs,” officials said.

The pup eventually died while being transported to the Marine Mammal Hospital.

Experts said the “tragic case” showed how the effects of harassment can have detrimental consequences for marine wildlife.

“While taking a close-up selfie or leaving the dog off-leash near a marine mammal may seem cute and innocent on the surface, it can present real challenges, particularly for young seals and sea lions,” says Adam Ratner of the Marine Mammal Center Associate Director of Conservation Education told KTVU FOX 2, “These behaviors can separate young puppies from their mothers, increasing stress and potentially increasing the risk of disease transmission between humans and animals.”

TOURISTS WARNED TO STAY AWAY FROM BISON FIGHT IN YELLOWSTONE

Northern fur seal Juicebox, a male pup, was rescued by trained responders from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California on October 22, 2022 after he was bitten by an off-leash dog and released back into the sea by a beach visitor. (Bill Hunnewell © The Marine Mammal Center / KTVU FOX 2)

Experts called on the public not to crowd or get too close to marine mammals and urged people to take steps to keep the animals safe.

The center planned to use the 2022 data it compiled for a new campaign to educate the public about the dangers of human-animal interactions, with a particular focus on beachgoers, tourists and small businesses “in key interaction hotspots areas”.

The data showed a county-by-county breakdown of cases in the 600-mile response zone. Santa Cruz County had the most incidents of harassment.

HOW TO SEE FOX WEATHER

Hotspot areas for human and canine harassment of marine mammals along the California coast, based on 2022 data from the Marine Mammal Center in Sausalito, California. (The Marine Mammal Center / KTVU FOX 2)

As part of its campaign, the Marine Mammal Center urged the public to follow the following rules when encountering marine animals:

• Keep your distance: Give marine mammals space and enjoy them from a safe distance on beaches and in the water
• Keep dogs on a leash
• Use your zoom: It’s okay to take photos and admire the animals, but if an animal reacts to your presence, you’re too close. Please no SEAL FIES!
• Call the experts, don’t intervene.

“The only way to ensure the safety and welfare of these animals is to first call the experts and maintain a safe distance until trained responders arrive,” officials said.

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Sarah Wilson writes down her heating bills on colored paper taped to the inside of a bureau in her living room. She has records going back to 2017, and the price of her last shipment of oil was an all-time high at $6.99 a gallon.

Sarah Wilson keeps a record of her oil prices and sticks them on the inside of a secretary bureau, where her grandmother also kept a record of heating bills. (Mara Holpamazian/NHPR)

Wilson says her family can still afford it, but if they can heat without having to pay as much, they want to try.

Instead of using their oil tank, they use two mini-splits, small, electricity-powered devices that heat the front and back rooms of their long house. The wood stove they usually use as a fun comfort – a place to curl up with their cat on a cold night – has been burning 24 hours a day.

“I stay up late,” says Wilson. “So I’m the one who feeds it late into the night to get it into the morning.”

Many Granite Staters are struggling with high heating bills this winter. Two in five New Hampshire residents use heating oil, which has hit a three-decade high. Natural gas, propane, and electricity are also exceptionally expensive. New England relies on fossil fuels for power and heat, and those fossil fuel markets have been extremely volatile in recent months.

To deal with this, some reach for wood. Lumber banks across the country, where you can pick up lumber for free, have braced themselves for increased interest this winter.

The price of wood is also high right now – but it can be a relatively cheaper option, especially for those who have wood in stock. For the Wilsons, that means using a cable they bought a few summers ago and an old maple tree they had to cut down in the backyard.

But in the six years the Wilsons had their wood stove, they had never cleaned it. Now that they use it every day, they wanted to make sure it was ready for that much wood burning.

Enter: Christopher Britt, a chimney sweep with Black Moose Chimney and Stove. Britt’s job is to make sure stoves and chimneys are clean and safe. And he’s on the road a lot more these days – with energy costs soaring, he says, more people want to burn wood and make sure their stove is in working order.

“There were a lot more estimates and you had to write quotes for people,” he said. “I’m fully booked until mid-February, which is pretty far for this time of year.”

Christopher Britt cleans the Wilsons’ chimney. (Mara Holpamazian/NHPR)

A chimney like the Wilsons’ that isn’t maintained regularly can throw up some surprises, says Britt.

“As soon as I read that note, I was like, ‘So it might be a dork. We can find all sorts of things,’” he says.

Britt spent about two hours cleaning the Wilsons stove and chimney. He’s not exactly the picture of an old-school sweeper – no top hat, no oversized pipe cleaner – but he leans in the teeth. He tells homeowners that shaking a sweeper’s dirty hand brings good luck.

“Which is funny because not many people want to shake my hand when it’s dirty,” he says.

But modern sweepers, like Britt, have a new set of tools that allow them to check a chimney more efficiently. The first thing Britt does at the Wilsons’ is set up a large cloth and a double-filter vacuum in the living room by the stove. This job consists of three parts: a cleaning, an inspection with a camera and a check-up on the roof.

For cleaning, he breaks out the rotation system. Looks like a weed killer. He uses it to knock down the dirt that has accumulated over the years.

That dirt is called creosote, and that’s why you need a chimney sweep. It’s there in the Wilsons’ chimney, but mostly harmless—fine, powdery, and a few bits of hard, flaky soot. But if you burn wood with more moisture in it, don’t burn it hot enough, or don’t have your chimney cleaned, creosote can build up and become sticky.

“This is the stuff you really want to be wary of because it can ignite, burn and cause a chimney fire,” says Britt.

Heating is a leading cause of fires in New Hampshire, and December, January, and February are peak times for heating-related fires, according to the state Fire Marshal. Chimney fires are one of the biggest threats.

So after removing the creosote, Britt does a few more inspections to make sure everything else on the chimney is safe.

Christopher Britt is cleaning a chimney inside the house, but goes up to the roof to inspect it after he’s done. (Mara Holpamazian/NHPR)

He takes out a small screen and a cylindrical device called a “Chim Scan” — a rotating camera that resembles a jellyfish, which he sticks up the chimney to make sure nothing’s broken.

Once the Wilsons pass the camera test, it’s time for the roof. Britt leans a ladder against the house and climbs up. He is careful but not shaky.

“I’m not afraid of heights. i respect her That’s how I put it,” he says, crouching on the shingles.

Britt checks the masonry, looking for cracks or damage in the mortar or brick. He also checks the inner lining, which contains all the soot and creosote.

“He’s in good health,” he says, carefully walking in a circle around the chimney.

Once off the roof, Britt gathers his tools, packs up the van, and gets ready to head to the nearest chimney. He has four more jobs scheduled for the day. He’s still relatively clean – just a few stains on his hands – but as a sweeper you have to be okay with going home dirty every day.

“Sometimes I’m completely covered in soot from head to toe,” he says.

Now that her chimney is clean and safe, Sarah Wilson plans to load up the wood stove. She agrees to have her chimney checked regularly. And before Britt leaves, she makes sure to shake his hand.

This story is a production of the New England News Collaborative. It was originally released by New Hampshire Public Radio.

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WATERTOWN – Ahead of the forecasted scorcher of a weekend, HVAC companies throughout our area report being overwhelmed with calls.

“Everyone is inundated with phone calls right now. We are doing our best to keep up,” said Steven Akian owner of Akian Plumbing, Heating and Air Conditioning. The company is in its fifth year but Akian himself has nearly 15 years of experience in the HVAC business.

“They can’t find people to service their equipment,” Akian said of customers calling in. “Customers are turning on their ACs and they are either not turning on or not blowing out cold air. That’s a problem.”

Akian said this time of year, they usually see roughly 60 calls a day for service, but that number has jumped drastically this week. The company received 297 phone calls on Monday alone.

Most of those callers have had to be turned away.

If you’re turning your AC on for the first time this season, Akian recommended having your cooling systems refrigerant levels checked, along with the accuracy of your thermostat.

Akian does not recommend people waiting as long as possible to turn on their air conditioner. He said it often results in people discovering issues when it’s too late.

Brandon Truitt

Brandon Truitt joined WBZ-TV in January 2022 after working as a reporter and fill-in anchor at WPRI in Providence, Rhode Island. Before WPRI, Truitt worked at WNCT in Greenville, North Carolina, where he began his career in broadcast journalism.

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