Not too much on the El Camino radar this weekend. I even had a couple last-minute cancellations. I have every confidence you’ll find ways to keep yourselves occupied. I hope it involves the indoors; this weekend is supposed to be a wet one. Dont forget to check out the El Camino Calendars page for a list of venues all up and down El Camino Real which always have a variety of activities going on.
DIY Art: Festive Family Fun
Saturday, December 18, 2010
12 3 pm
Free with Museum admission
Celebrate the season of lights by using LEDs to make a high-tech holiday decoration. Bring the whole family for festive art-making. Art materials will be provided.
San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
A bit of the traditional and a bit of the unexpected this weekend. Dont forget to check out the El Camino Calendars page for a list of venues all up and down El Camino Real which always have a variety of activities going on.
Santa-Go-Round
Sunday December 12th
CONTESTS! CRAWLS AND CRAZINESS!
Have fun and support a great cause. Santa-Go-Round is part toy drive, part costume contest, part pub crawl and all fun. Come to the Circle of Palms and bring a new, unwrapped toy to be donated to InnVision and participate in what is going to be one of the most talked about events in downtown San Jose since Zombie-O-Rama.
Come dressed as Santa and get discounts on Ice Skating and drink or dinner specials at one of 19 participating businesses.
Downtown San Jose http://www.santagoround.com/
2nd Annual San Jose Short Film Festival
Opening Night Premiere and Screenings Coming December 2010
Buy tickets online at Camera 3 Cinemas or visit the Camera 3 Cinema Box Office.:
Thursday December 9th Opening Night:
$10 (tickets are limited: includes premiere screening, meet the movie makers forum after screening, pre-show mixer. 6:30pm mixer, 7:30pm screening
Saturday December 11th:
$8 tickets 1pm and 4pm screening times
Sunday December 12th:
$8 tickets 1pm and 4pm screening times
We are bringing-back all Deadstök designs made in 2010!
Expect to see new version t-shirt designs by dNA, Everyday Debauchery, Lost San Jose, Kori Thompson, Lacey Bryant, Michael Foley, Anabella Pinon, Force 129, Wadl, Jane Doe, and more!
Say good-bye to STREETBOT! Say HELLO to the WOW Silog Truck! YUMmmm…
Squareweezy and Cutso from The Bangerz will provide beats in the backroom where we’ll have more to nibble and sip.
A chance to recharge after last week’s retail shock. Dont forget to check out the El Camino Calendars page for a list of venues all up and down El Camino Real which always have a variety of activities going on.
South FIRST FRIDAYS Art Walk
December 3, 2010
JOIN US for the next South FIRST FRIDAYS art walk on DEC 3rd!
8pm til LATE ART WALK venues are free and open to the public
SoFA District (So. First Street between San Carlos and E. Reed streets)
San Jose http://www.southfirstfridays.com/
DIY Art: Festive Family Fun
December 4, 2010
12 3 pm
Free with Museum admission
Celebrate the season of lights by using LEDs to make a high-tech holiday decoration. Bring the whole family for festive art-making. Art materials will be provided.
The San Jose Holiday Parade, the largest parade of its kind in Northern California, and one of the largest in the state, is ready to usher in the holidays with its giant helium balloons, over two dozen marching bands, creative floats, dozens of specialty units, clowns and Santa Claus.
This years parade is preparing to entertain millions of people on Sunday, December 5, 2010, beginning at 8:30 a.m., televised live on NBC Bay Area at 9:00 a.m. and streamed worldwide on nbcbayarea.com
The 29th Annual SAN JOSE HOLIDAY PARADE will showcase approximately 90 entries with 5,000 marchers, including giant soaring helium balloons, top marching bands, colorful floats, drill teams, equestrians, clowns and special guest celebrities!
The parade will step off on Santa Clara Street and Delmas Avenue, near HP Pavilion, at 8:30 a.m. proceeding east on Santa Clara Street. It will turn right on Market Street, marching south past Plaza De Cesar Chavez and ending at San Carlos Street. Join us to celebrate Toys, Treasures and Traditions at the San Jose Holiday Parade on December 5, 2010! http://www.sanjoseholidayparade.com/
HOLIDAY OPEN HOUSE
DECEMBER 5 : 12-3PM
Were celebrating a great year with a Holiday Open House on Sunday, 12/5. Join us in the Plant 51 Mezzanine Lounge for some festive food, refreshments & model tours. This is also a great opportunity to drop off new, unwrapped toy donations as part of our annual Toys for Tots drive for San Joses children in need.
Sunday, Dec. 5, 2010 2:00 pm to 7:00 pm
Ignatian Center for Jesuit Education
All are invited to be a part of this celebration in drama, dance, and song that tells the story of the apparitions of Our Lady of Guadalupe. The performance will be in Spanish with English commentary throughout.
A reception will follow in Benson Center. Admission is free and open to the public. Families are welcomed!
Location: Mission Church
Santa Clara University
500 El Camino Real
Santa Clara, CA 95053
Saturday, December 4 · 12:00pm – 3:00pm
Town & Country Village
855 El Camino Real
Palo Alto, CA
Santa’s Elf is at Town & Country Village to help children write letters to St. Nick. Plus, make ornaments and dreidels, face painting by the Snow Princess and performances by the Palo Alto High School Madrigal Singers. http://www.tandcvillage.com/ Facebook event
Night of Holiday Lights, Downtown Laurel Street
Downtown Laurel Street, San Carlos
12/3/2010 5:00 PM – 8:00 PM
Mark your Calendars for a New Holiday Tradition!
6:30 Lighting Festivities
Kickoff the Holidays * Family Fun *
Shop *Eat * Toy Drive * Food Drive *
Music * Special Surprises *
Businesses Open Late Event info
Christmas Tree Lighting
Join us the first Saturday in December for the annual Mission San Jose Christmas Tree Lighting at the Old School
Date: December 4, 2010
Location: Mission Blvd. & Cedar Street, across from Ohlone College
* 5:30 pm – Gathering
* 5:30 – 6:00 pm – Entertainment by StarStruck Theatre & The Canyon Band
* 6:00 – Tree Lighting and Arrival of Special Guest
* Refreshments will be served
* Balloons & Face Painting
This week you have two opportunities to help your neighbors in need while enjoying a delicious meal at a number of terrific Bay Area restaurants.
Tuesday, November 9, 2010 dozens of restaurants are participating in the first annual Bay Area Dine Out. This benefits Meals on Wheels which serves meals to over 8,500 seniors throughout the entire region. Simply dine out at any of the restaurants and let them know you’re there for Dine Out, and they’ll donate part of the proceeds from your meal to this worthy cause.
The full list of restaurants grouped by county is on their website: http://dineoutnow.org/. Of course I know you are primarily interested in restaurants on El Camino Real, so I’ve taken the liberty of extracting the establishments that meet your discerning criteria.
Lizarran Tapas Restaurant | 7400 Monterey Street | Gilroy
Amici’s East Coast Pizzeria | 225 W. Santa Clara Street | San Jose
China Stix Restaurant | 2110 El Camino Real | Santa Clara
Country Inn Cafe | 2008 El Camino Real | Santa Clara
La Paloma Restaurant | 2280 El Camino Real | Santa Clara
Pizz’a Chicago Santa Clara | 1576 Halford Avenue | Santa Clara
Celias Mexican Restaurant | 3740 El Camino Real | Palo Alto
Hobees California Restaurants | 4224 El Camino Real | Palo Alto
Hobee’s California Restaurants | 67 Town & Country Village | Palo Alto
British Bankers Club | 1090 El Camino Real | Menlo Park
Cedro Ristorante Italiano | 1010 El Camino Real #140 | Menlo Park
Celias Mexican Restaurant | 1850 El Camino Real | Menlo Park
Oak City Bar and Grill | 1029 El Camino Real | Menlo Park
Round Table Pizza | 1225 El Camino Real | Menlo Park
Chantilly Restaurant | 3001 El Camino Real | Redwood City
John Bentleys Restaurant | 2915 El Camino Real | Redwood City
Maxs of Redwood City | 1001 El Camino Real | Redwood City
Mountain Mikes Pizza | 390 El Camino Real | Belmont
The American Bull Bar & Grill | 1819 El Camino Real | Burlingame
Celias Mexican Restaurant | 201 El Camino Real | San Bruno
If these don’t suit you, do peruse the full list for someplace that does. You can be excused this one time for patronizing eateries not on El Camino. It might be wise to call ahead for reservations.
If you’re in San Francisco, don’t eat too much on Tuesday because on Wednesday, November 10 you have the opportunity to do it again. An organization called Mission Graduates is putting on an event called Food for Thought at various restaurants in the Mission District. Proceeds from your meal will benefit the Mission Graduates program which works with kids from the Mission and prepares them for college. Demographically these kids are disadvantaged so this program provides crucial help for them to reach their goals through higher education. Thanks to the good folks at Stark Insider for alerting me to this event.
Find participating restaurants on Mission Graduates’ web site: http://www.missiongraduates.org/foodforthought/. Again let them know you’re there for Food for Thought. The restaurants are not all on Mission Street or Dolores or other streets that qualify as El Camino in San Francisco, but they’re close enough that again, I’ll grant you a free pass. Thinking about all these great restaurants has put me in a charitable mood.
On September 22, Metro, Silicon Valley’s weekly newspaper, put out their “Best of Silicon Valley” issue, 2010 edition. It contains the readers’ choices and editors’ picks of the best locations, goods, and services available in Santa Clara County and beyond. Of all the “Best of” lists out there, Metro’s is the one I’ve always valued the most partly because it always brings the wacky with unique categories like “Best Place to be a Scarecrow”and “Best Place to Buy an Accordian,” but mostly because it delivers. Some of my favorite joints in the South Bay proudly display coveted Metro “Best of” placards. They have weight with me, and they’ve earned my trust.
It’s no surprise Metro is so in tune with quality in the Valley. As it so happens this is their 25th annual list, a noteworthy milestone. They know what they’re doing and they do it well. You might even say too well: the sucker is pretty large. This year the printed list is 80 pages long. I scanned every page with glee but quickly realized what the problem was. They covered the entire Valley including, shockingly enough, businesses and locations that are not on El Camino Real. Yeah, I know, right? I understand their reasoning. Conceivably someone could find themselves on, say, San Carlos Street and they can’t easily get to El Camino and they desperately need to buy some sporty sunglasses. In such a scenario a two-dimensional “Best of” list could hypothetically be handy. All the same I took it upon myself to scour the list and extract for you the best of the “Best of,” the winners which are located on extended El Camino Real.
The list is below, presented not by category but in rough geographical order. Winners that are tagged with “#2” or “#3” came in second or third in the readers’ polling; otherwise they came in first or were simply awarded by the editors. This was a big copy-n-paste job so I apologize in advance for any errors I might have injected.
As I was putting this together I noticed that the list is heavily weighted towards Downtown San Jose. Then I remembered: Metro Silicon Valley is headquartered on El Camino, at 550 South First Street, in San Jose’s SoFA district. Now we know why the list is so good.
Rosso’s Furniture
#3 Best Furniture Store
6881 Monterey Road, Gilroy
Tony Di Maggio’s Pizza
Best Stromboli
3852 Monterey Hwy., San Jose
Road Rider
#2 Best Motorcycle Shop
2897 Monterey Hwy., San Jose
Southern Lumber
#2 Best Alternative to Home Depot
1402 Monterey Hwy., San Jose
San Jose Institute of Contemporary Art
Best Art Gallery
560 S. First St., San Jose
San Jose Museum of Quilts and Textiles
#3 Best Art Museum
520 S. First St., San Jose
San Jose Stage Company
#2 Best Theater Company
490 S. First St., San Jose
WORKS/San Jose
Best Gallery for Weird Art #3 Best Art Gallery
451 S. First St., San Jose
I’ve been to WORKS three times in the past month, every two weeks, and each time the exhibit has been completely different. They turn this place over fast and frequently. I loved the most recent (OP)Space installation.
South First Billiards
Best Place to Play Pool
420 S. First St., San Jose
Miami Beach Club
#2 Best Latin/Salsa Club
417 S. First St., San Jose
Bayonne
#3 Best New Restaurant
399 S. First St., San Jose
This is high on my list of places to try, featuring lighter Southern fare.
Agenda’s Wednesday salsa night
#3 Best Latin/Salsa Club
399 S. First St., San Jose
Wet
#3 Best Big Dance Club
396 S. First St., San Jose
Cherri Lakey & Brian Eder
Best Cultural Guerillas
Anno Domini, 366 S. First St., San Jose
I was unaware until now that this pair deserves a lot of credit for the cool, creative vision which San Jose’s SoFA district has become recently.
Brix Nightclub
#2 Best Gay or Lesbian Bar
349 S. First St., San Jose
California Theatre
Most Romantic Movie Watching Spot
345 S. First St., San Jose
Symphony Silicon Valley
Best Symphony/Classical Group
325 S. First St., San Jose, performances at the California Theatre
Original Joe’s
Best Moderately Priced Italian Food Best Late Night Eats Best Martinis
301 S. First St., San Jose
Four Points by Sheraton
#3 Best Boutique Hotel – San Jose/Los Gatos
211 S. First St., San Jose
Soula Power Yoga
Best Yoga Studio
200 S. First St. #70, San Jose
San Jose Taiko and the Bangerz
Best Collaboration
SoFA District, San Jose
So sad I missed this live. Check it out on YouTube.
SubZero Festival
Best Urban Uprising
San Jose
Children’s Musical Theatre San Jose
Best Children’s Theater
271 S. Market St., San Jose, performances at Montgomery Theater
Tech Museum
Best History/Specialty Museum
201 S. Market St., San Jose
Tech Museum Store
#3 Best Toy Store
201 S. Market St., San Jose
San Jose Museum of Art
Best Art Museum
110 S. Market St., San Jose
San Jose Museum of Art Museum Store
#2 Best Gift Store
110 S. Market St., San Jose
Dang, now my Christmas gift-buying secret is out!
McCormick and Schmick’s
#2 Best Seafood Restaurant #2 Best Happy Hour
170 S. Market St., San Jose
The Fairmont
Best Hotel Best Luxury Hotel – San Jose/Los Gatos
170 S. Market St., San Jose
Fairmont Hotel Lobby Lounge
#3 Best Jazz/Blues Club #3 Best Hotel Bar
170 S. Market St., San Jose
The Grill on the Alley
#2 Best Martinis
172 S. Market St., San Jose
Music in the Park
Best Local Festival
Plaza de Cesar Chavez, San Jose
A couple years ago I took my son to Music in the Park to see his first live rock band, Smash Mouth. He’ll always cherish that night.
San Jose Jazz Festival
#2 Best Local Festival
Various venues, downtown San Jose
Linda Ronstadt
Best Official South Bay Cultural Treasure
Mexican Heritage and Mariachi Festival artistic director
I include her as an El Caminoan because the 2010 San Jose Mariachi Festival culminated at Plaza de Cesar Chavez, which I also count as El Camino. It’s a long story.
Bill’s Beer Steamed Hot Dogs
Best Bacon Hot Dogs
Market and Santa Clara streets, San Jose
Hammer & Lewis Fashions
Best Name for a Downtown Store
19 S. First St., San Jose
It’s a San Jose thing. You wouldn’t understand.
Good Karma
Best Vegetarian Overall #3 Best Asian Vegetarian
37 S. First St., San Jose
E&O Trading Company
Best Asian Fusion #2 Best Malaysian Restaurant
96 S. First St., San Jose
Mmm…corn fritters…
Umbrella
#2 Best Hair Salon – San Jose/Sunnyvale/Los Gatos
2 N. Market St. #100, San Jose
Erik’s Deli
Best Deli/Sandwich Shop
2 North Market St., Suite 105, San Jose
717 E. El Camino Real, Sunnyvale
1350 Grant Rd., Mountain View
Multiple locations
Ballet San Jose
Best Dance Company
40 N. First St., San Jose
Picasso’s
#3 Best Tapas/Small Plates
62 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose
San Pedro Square Farmers Market
Best Farmers Market
San Pedro and Santa Clara streets, San Jose. Fridays, 10am-2pm
O’Flaherty’s
Best Irish Pub
25 N. San Pedro St., San Jose
Peggy Sue’s
#3 Best Local Burger Place
29 N. San Pedro St., San Jose
Sonoma Chicken
Best New Restaurant Best Dining Value Best Family Restaurant
31 N. Market St., San Jose
Multiple locations
I’m not sure how this counts as new, but I don’t argue the other awards. Apparently they dropped the “Coop” from the name.
Satori Tea Company
Best Place for a Destroyed Nervous System
37 N. San Pedro St., San Jose
Britannia Arms, San Jose
Best British Pub #2 Best Sports Bar #2 Best Pre-Sharks Game Spot #2 Best Restaurant Patio #3 Best Happy Hour
173 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose
Metro readers really really like this place. Can you believe I’ve never been there?
Hotel De Anza
#3 Best Luxury Hotel – San Jose/Los Gatos
233 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose
Hedley Club Lounge (Hotel De Anza)
#2 Best Hotel Bar
233 W. Santa Clara St., San Jose
Schurra’s
Best Chocolate Shop
840 The Alameda, San Jose
A surprise win, but well-deserved. It’s special to me because I stopped by Schurra’s for an ice cream cone the day I created this blog. Sadly Bill Mundy, former owner of Schurra’s and father of the current owner, passed away last month, another sad loss to The Alameda.
The Watergarden
#3 Best Gay or Lesbian Bar
1010 The Alameda, San Jose
Recently I walked by this place, heard water running, and wondered what it was. Now I know.
The Usuals
Best Boutique-Gallery Crossover
1020 The Alameda, San Jose
The now classic “I heart SJ” tee shirts made them a lock for this prize. Congratulations to Mari and Mike, friends of AllCamino!
Recycle Bookstore
#2 Best Local Independent Bookstore
1066 The Alameda, San Jose
J. Lohr Vineyards & Wines
Best Local Winery
1000 Lenzen Ave., San Jose
Also a great place to throw a party. We held my wife’s birthday party there a few years ago and it was a hit.
Tee Nee Thai
Best Thai Restaurant Beer and Wine List
1423 The Alameda, San Jose
Near and dear to me, the subject of my very first blog post.
Planned Parenthood
#3 Best Organization Making a Difference
1691 The Alameda, San Jose
YMCA
#2 Best Health Club
1717 The Alameda, San Jose
Various locations
KSCU-FM (103.3)
#2 Best College/Independent Radio Station 500 El Camino Real, #3207, Santa Clara
The Off Ramp
Best Bicycle Shop
2369 El Camino Real, Santa Clara
2320 El Camino Real, Mountain View
Funny how similar the two addresses are, but they’re nine miles apart. That’s El Camino!
Russell’s Furniture
Best Furniture Store
2645 El Camino Real, Santa Clara
Santa Clara Ballet
#3 Best Dance Company
3086 El Camino Real, Santa Clara
Orchard Supply
Best Alternative to Home Depot
3615 El Camino Real, Santa Clara
777 Sunnyvale Saratoga Road, Sunnyvale
Multiple locations
Fish Market
Best Seafood Restaurant
3775 El Camino Real, Santa Clara
This is going to be a big weekend for women’s soccer on El Camino Real. Friday, October 1 the Ohlone College Renegades are leaving their home field above Mission San Jose in Fremont and traveling around the Bay to play the Mission College Saints in Santa Clara. Yep, it’s Mission vs. Mission. One can only assume the Renegades will be following El Camino de San Jose to get to Santa Clara. They may consider stopping at Penitencia Creek in Milpitas the way the padres did back in the day to confess their sins.
Saturday, October 2 American soccer legend Brandi Chastain is celebrating her retirement from professional play by hosting a testimonial all-star game at Buck Shaw Stadium in Santa Clara on El Camino Real. The game starts at 6:00 PM but festivities start at 3:00 PM with family activities and a sold-out youth clinic. It’s unknown whether Brandi will be ripping her jersey off at the final whistle Saturday as she did when she famously scored the penalty kick that won the FIFA Women’s World Cup 1999 for the U.S., but knowing her, anything is possible.
Menlo College will be quite busy. They’re showcasing their stamina by hosting not one but two women’s soccer matches this weekend on El Camino Real in Atherton: Saturday at 1:00 PM against the Bethany University Bruins (Scotts Valley), and Sunday at 12:00 PM against the Chapman University Panthers (Orange, CA). The mighty Oaks are looking to build momentum from their decisive 7-0 trouncing of the Mills College Cyclone last week, Menlo’s first win of the season.
Sunday, October 3 at 1:00 PM, in a marquis matchup the Santa Clara University Broncos are heading up The Royal Road to face off against the Stanford University Cardinal. Both teams are hot this year. The Cardinal are undefeated with a 8-0-2 record, but Santa Clara nearly matches at an impressive 7-2-2. ([Update] Here’s a great article about the history of the Santa Clara-Stanford rivalry.) The Stanford women are undoubtedly buoyed by the fact that four of their alums are on the hometown FC Gold Pride squad that won the Women’s Professional Soccer championship last week, defeating the Philadelphia Independence in Hayward. Actually that’s an accomplishment that everyone in the Bay Area can be proud of.
More great events coming up this weekend. Be sure to check out my new El Camino Calendars page for a list of venues which always have a variety of activities going on.
Saturday, October 2nd
17380 Monterey Road (corner of 2nd and Monterey)
Morgan Hill
The City of Morgan Hill is seeking community input on the redesign of Monterey Road between Dunne and Main Avenues, in downtown. A series of community meetings and open forums will be held to provide opportunities for input. With the communitys help, several alternatives will be developed to address community priorities for this important segment of road. http://www.morgan-hill.ca.gov/
JOIN US for the next South FIRST FRIDAYS art walk on OCT 1st, 2010!
8pm til LATE ART WALK venues are free and open to the public
SoFA District (So. First Street between San Carlos and E. Reed streets) http://southfirstfridays.com/
KALEID Gallery presents new solo exhibitions by Mariana Barnes and John Eric Paulson on Friday, October 1st, 7-9pm.
KALEID Gallery
88 South Fourth Street
San Jose, CA www.kaleidgallery.com
San Jose Museum of Art
110 South Market Street
San Jose, CA 95113
Free for college students, faculty, and staff. An exclusive after-hours event for a private viewing of the exhibitions, complemented by DJs, the chance to try your hand at an LED light project, and Treatbot, the karaoke ice-cream truck. http://www.sjmusart.org/
Sunday, October 3, 2010
A 1/2 Marathon through the streets of San Jose complete with live bands along the course and a finish line concert featuring Blues Traveler. http://san-jose.competitor.com/
San Jose McEnery Convention Center
150 W. San Carlos Street
San Jose, CA 95113
Dates: October 1-2, 2010
Times: Friday, October 1st: 1pm- 6pm | Saturday, October 2nd: 9am- 5pm
Free Admission Open to the public!
More than 80 exhibitors will feature merchandise, free samples, interactive displays, and exciting sweepstakes.
An all-star Testimonial Soccer Game honoring the career of Brandi Chastain and raising funds for her new ReachUP! Foundation. Includes interactive family activities.
Saturday October 2, 2010
Family friendly interactive activities begin at 3 p.m
Hosted by the British Bankers Club
1090 El Camino Real, Menlo Park
October 3, 2010
4pm to 7pm
Special Fundraiser to support the 2011 Season
Eat, drink, and make merry with the creative minds behind the Los Gatos and Mid-Peninsula Shakespeare Festivals. Join us at the British Bankers Club for appetizers and sweets, surprising entertainment, silent auction, and some word (and sword) play to round out the evening. Huzzah! http://www.lgshakes.org/
Via InMenlo
Street pianos have come to San Jose. Artist Luke Jerram has placed nineteen painted pianos outdoors in public spaces throughout downtown in an ongoing art installation called, “Play Me, I’m Yours.” They’re free for anyone to plop down and start playing. The idea is to spark conversation, community, and creativity in urban spaces where people gather but don’t connect. It was conceived in Birmingham, England in 2008 and has since toured cities around the world including Sao Paolo, Sydney, and New York. The pianos will be in San Jose from August 28 until September 22, 2010.
The San Jose appearance is part of the 2010 01SJ Biennial, an art event so grand I don’t know how to begin to describe it other than to say you won’t be able to swing a dead Cat-5 cable this weekend without hitting something artistic. 01SJ starts Thursday September 16 and runs through Sunday, September 19 in multiple venues throughout and around downtown, and even in other cities around the Bay.
I’ve played the piano ever since my parents put a Hamilton upright in my bedroom when I was six. I knew I couldn’t let these pianos come and go without tickling some ivory. Several of the pianos are on or near El Camino Real in San Jose:
On Saturday, September 11, after a full day of commemorating 9/11, enjoying the Mountain View Art & Wine Festival, shopping at C.J. Olson, visiting with friends, and eating dinner at Habana Cuba, I dragged my wife Paulette and her friend Melanie out to HP Pavilion where a street piano is nestled against one of the massive columns. HP Pavilion is on W. Santa Clara Street which is the part of El Camino between Plaza de César Chávez and The Alameda. I played a song called aptly, “El Camino Real.” See, I played “El Camino Real” on El Camino Real. Clever, right? And oh yes…I wore my excellent shirt of many missions. Too sexy.
The song was written by Jean and Justin Kramer to celebrate the road and is the official song of the California Federation of Women’s Clubs’ Adopt-a-Bell program. I found it last year published in the book California’s El Camino Real and Its Historic Bells by Max Kurillo and Erline M. Tuttle and I’ve just been waiting for the right opportunity to share it with you.
El Camino Real
by Jean & Justin Kramer
It began in Loreto, a long time ago
By the Gulf of California in Old Mexico.
Then north to San Diego and on to Monterey
And moving still forward to San Francisco Bay.
Now we find in Solano the end of the trail
And the beauty of the highway in vivid detail.
El Camino Real.
El Camino Real.
From Loreto to Solano
El Camino Real.
Copyright by Jean & Justin Kramer. All rights reserved.
You did not know El Camino had its own anthem, did you? Well now you do.
Paulette took a bunch of photos of me rehearsing, then shot videos of me playing. The first take was pretty good but the sound was poor. Also hilariously she shouted “Rolling!” at the start of the recording which technically was the correct thing to do but since I had no intention of trying to edit it out in post-production, we went again. She moved a little closer to try to improve the sound, and the second take was golden. Watch it below.
I played the song straight for the first two takes so in the spirit of spontaneity I tried a little improvised embellishment for the third take. You can find all three takes here. They’re all dark and noisy and imperfect, but it was a beautiful night and a fun experience.
After we were done, I made the rash decision to leave the sheet music for “El Camino Real” taped to the piano. A little act of subversive graffiti. I went back a couple days later to take daytime photos and the sheet was gone but I figure as long as one person saw it, learned something, and now associates HP Pavilion with El Camino, my goal was achieved. I made a little street art.
AllCamino is now listed at GoHyperlocal.com! GoHyperlocal is a blog about producing and improving hyperlocal news web sites and it features a listing of such sites throughout the U.S. and U.K. I submitted AllCamino for their consideration and happily it was accepted. Here’s my listing.
“Hyperlocal” refers to the growing trend where news stories are being reported and published from and about small well-defined geographic regions such as cities or even neighborhoods. It contrasts with traditional media outlets which don’t have the bandwidth to report down to the same level of focused detail. The hyperlocal trend is yet another area where technology and the internet are democratizing the flow of information and putting powerful communication capability in the hands of individuals.
AllCamino does stretch the concept of hyperlocal. On the one hand it’s super-hyperlocal because it focuses on a single street, but on the other hand it’s inter-macroregional because it cuts across multiple cities, counties, even countries. Nevertheless I do fit GoHyperlocal’s profile as a small, independent, slightly obsessive blogger. I also satisfy their definition: “An independent news site dedicated to a physical location that we can point to on a map.”
Speaking of maps, GoHyperlocal maintains a Google map which pinpoints all their listed sites. It was a challenge for me to pick a single coordinate to represent AllCamino but I decided on 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara. That’s the address of Santa Clara University and I picked it because the immediate area contains so much of what AllCamino is about. There’s a mission, a university with athletic, cultural, and academic venues, a train station with a museum, and a transit center. There are residences nearby, businesses, and retail. It has it all. Even a bell. On a personal note it’s also pretty much the closest point on El Camino Real “proper” to my house.
GoHyperlocal is run by a fellow named Chad. He doesn’t just list other sites. He posts articles useful for the hyperlocal blogger such as story ideas, journalism principles, and critiques of what works and doesn’t work on hyperlocal sites. Surprisingly Chad doesn’t run a hyperlocal site himself. He started GoHyperlocal as a way to combine his interest in web technology and his background in sports journalism. He says of local sites, “They’re a much better way to get to know a place and its people than reading about it on some travel site or even in their city newspaper.” It’s meta-tourism.
I found GoHyperlocal when I was searching for other local blogs that encompass El Camino. I turned up the excellent InMenlo.com which is all about Menlo Park and Atherton. InMenlo is also listed at GoHyperlocal so one click led to another and here we are. GoHyperlocal is always looking for other suitable sites so if you know any, be sure to submit them.
Last November I took a bus ride up El Camino Real from San Jose to San Francisco and blogged my impressions and observations. To avoid giving myself whiplash, that day I only looked out the right side of the bus at the eastern side of the street and doggedly ignored the left side so the job was only half done. Last Friday, September 3, 2010, I completed the task, taking the reverse bus trip from San Francisco down to San Jose, observing the west side. Back in November I scribbled all my notes on the bus by hand in a notebook and ended up taking four months to type them all up. It’s not that I’m a slow typist, it’s just that the scope of the project was much larger than I anticipated. For the second trip I found a more efficient way: I live-tweeted my journey.
If you’re unfamiliar with tweeting, it means I used my cell phone on the road to type and send text messages to the Twitter service. Twitter messages, or “tweets,” are limited to 140 characters each so it enforces brevity. A great advantage is that every message was timestamped and geocoded by GPS so I have a complete record of what I saw, when I saw it, and where I was. I tried to live in the moment and just write what was on my mind which means whatever happened to catch my eye out the bus window. I know it’s a pretty pedestrian read (irony intended) but I hope I conveyed a sense of El Camino’s diverse profile.
Below are my 167 tweets from that day from my brand new @allcamino twitter account. It took some effort to extract them all from Twitter’s web site. There are web apps that do this but they didn’t work for me because they rely on Twitter’s search engine which failed me, returning only six tweets (?!). I wrote a Perl script to convert their HTML to the format I wanted for the blog. To improve the readability I put each time stamp and location stamp against the right margin above each tweet. You can click the location links to open a Google map. My live-tweeting strategy worked great. Last year it took me four months to finish the writeup. Here I’ve done it in less than four days.
I cleaned the text up, fixing obvious two-left-thumb typos and grammar issues, but the content is largely raw and uncut. I’ve put a few editor notes in [square] brackets and added hyperlinks for your reference. I’ve written broader post-trip comments in between tweets in italics. You’ll see a bunch of the photos I took, many from the windows of the buses. Please excuse their quality. (more…)
If you’re in San Francisco, don’t eat too much on Tuesday because on Wednesday, November 10 you have the opportunity to do it again. An organization called Mission Graduates is putting on an event called Food for Thought at various restaurants in the Mission District. Proceeds from your meal will benefit the Mission Graduates program which works with kids from the Mission and prepares them for college. Demographically these kids are disadvantaged so this program provides crucial help for them to reach their goals through higher education. Thanks to the good folks at 
AllCamino is now listed at 
