Petaluma is Book Country !
October, 2023. Big night in Petaluma. Some highlights:
A block south of the Petaluma Hotel, Copperfield’s Books at 140 Kentucky Street, is Marin & Sonoma Countys’ finest haven. This evening readers enjoy wine and brownies, and there’s a small plastic baggie with a joint inside, taped to under the seat of one lucky folding chair. Our moderator attempts to keep things running smoothly, but a radio duo who know their way around a microphone insist on telling their own tales to astonish…
Ladies & Gentlemen,
HE’s a former KSAN Gnus reporter & anchor, who showed up for his first day on the job at the Jive 95 barefoot…and he used to tug his longhair under a wig when he worked at a straight station before that….an accomplished NBC overseas correspondent…the author of numerous topical takes in short and long tome form–which are somewhere in Copperfield’s, and if they aren’t well they goddamn well should be!–and current holder of an esteemed journalism chair at THE University of Oregon, and tonight enrobed in white, a semi-ironic nod to Tom Wolfe…He weighs in at 160 lbs but his thoughts are even weightier…butt of a famous Terry McGovern tale to be told later, here he is all the way from Eugene: Peeeeeter LAUFER!
THIS ageless, delightful sprite was KSAN’s morning mensch from 1974 to 1978, from 6 to 10. Already highly-rated at one of America’s very first radio stations, KDKA Pittsburgh, he became part of a famous powerhouse of San Francisco personalities at KSFO-AM, until being stolen away (for a song!) by the hippest hippie of them all, KSAN’s “Big Daddy” Tom Donahue! Falling hopelessly in love with the station when he watched Jivers streaking KSFO after a win in the ratings game, he’s played the Boarding House and other dark Frisco spaces, emceeing and performing bright comedy… For years the voice of Pacific Stereo and other musical outfits, he facilitates adult theater games and is a venerable acting coach (bayactor@gmail)..welcome Petaluma’s own…Terrrrry McGOVERN!
And SHE! was KSAN PD/DJ/MD/Music Librarian through the ’70s….you know her you, love her voice, you still hear her free-forming progressively every Thursday night 8 to 10 on KPFA FM Pacifica in Berkeley…her annual “Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival” arrives soon and all for free in various Golden Gate Park greenswards…here she comes, down from Sebastopol because a friend brought her because she doesn’t drive at night…her e-handle is “Bonzilla” because she is the one, the only…Bonnnnnnnie SIMMONS!
But first, we’ll hear from the lovely and well-read Sophia Rimkeit…
Video by DJ Ed Perlstein, known for shooting iconic photos of the rock & roll scene, for rescuing KMPX/KSAN’s archives, and for keeping his day job.
