COURT JESTERINGS

With h brown

Photo(s) by Luke Thomas

Court Jester on Josh Wolf and loss of old friends

By h. brown

January 16, 2007

"At midnight on New Year's eve, the prisoners rattled their bars."

(Letter excerpt from Josh Wolf)

My neighbor, Walter, has gotten 3 letters from Josh Wolf since he began writing him a couple of months ago. He says that Josh is feeling a little forgotten and asks that we write him.

Federal Correctional Institution - Dublin
Joshua Wolf 98005-111
5701 8th St. Camp-Parks, Unit J2
Dublin, CA 94568

Those of you with a couple of bucks to spare can help by sending money to Josh's mom care of this address:

Liz Wolf-Spada
PO Box 2235
Wrightwood CA 92397

For online messages to Josh:

http://www.riseupnetwork.com

http://freejosh.pbwiki.com

http://joshwolf.net

This is the most important case in the U.S. right now. If reporters can't protect their sources and the confidentiality of their files, the whistleblowers will stop whistling and you'll never hear about the criminal activities of our elected officials and their minions. Send a letter to Josh and frame the response. Your grandkids will love reading it. As Diamond Dave Whitaker says:

"We gotta be out here for him because he's in there for us."

The last party (fundraiser) for Josh was fantastic. Bruce Brugmann was point scribe for the evening and it was a chance for fellowship with like-minded journalists of all stripes. This town needs a serious press club watering hole (official or not) open to paid and unpaid media types and students. If a person were to put just a dozen or so free computers behind a velvet rope next to the bar, you'd soon be ground zero for local to international inksters who'd always prefer to file from a bar. Again, someone take the responsibility for the next gathering. So far, the three events have been sponsored by a retiree (me), an SFPO board member and ex-Leno aide (Julian Davis) and the top local alternative newspaper publisher (Brugmann). Space was donated by Krissy Keefer and Terrance Allen. Got access to a space where 50 or a hundred people can drink, gossip and donate?

In memoriam

Ray Wood

Mike Agasian phoned Jens Nielsen in the middle of the night. "Ray Wood just died" spake the past generation Harcourt Residence Club desk clerk. I fell to my knees when I heard the news yesterday, bowed my head and passed all of my energy out to my old buddy. Like he needed anything earthly anymore.

Back in my wild days, that's when I hung with Ray. I could (and have) filled a novel with our exploits while he was doing about a hundred poetry shows on Public Access Channel 29. I think it was called: 'Ray's Bohemian Pad.' My friends and I would do massive amounts of acid and booze and speed and whatever, and go to wherever Ray was filming and read poetry. The possibility of moments like that are what brought me to San Francisco. Thanks, Ray.

Nancy Leutwiler

She was my girlfriend when I had my jazz club in St. Louis in the mid-70's. She free-lanced political meetings for a number of publications, wrote short films and put up with me through the 3 most intense years of my life. Again, I already wrote the novel of that era and it's in my sister's basement 2,000 miles from here just waiting to be transcribed.

This was a situation (like Ray's death - he couldn't have been 50) … it was a shock. I was sitting around all caught up with my reading and viewing of the Board and I googled Nancy's name on a whim.

Not only had she died, but she died 9 years ago at the age of 46. I didn't know how to react. I guess when you're a rolling stone like me, you have to expect to get some news late. I hadn't seen her in over 25 years but it hit me hard. She'd come out to L.A. with me after 'h. brown's' had been repossessed by the government and sold at auction.

Josh Wolf is very much alive

Sorry for the downer column. You can't do much about Ray and Nancy except to wait for the book to come out. Josh, is another matter. Dig back to those addresses and write a letter and, if you can, send him some money for the prison commissary. There is one journalist in prison in the U.S. That journalist is Josh Wolf and the SFPFD 'jurisdiction shopped' to put him there.

Don't forget him.

h. brown is a 62 year-old keeper of sfbulldog.com, an eclectic site featuring a half dozen City Hall denizens. h is a former sailor, firefighter, teacher, nightclub owner, and a hard-living satirical muckraker. Email h at h@ludd.net.

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