TOMMY CROOK, tulsa oklahoma, teaught TUCK ANDRESS of "Tuck'n'Patti" Famous Guitar Jazz Virtual Vertigoist!!!
Sunday, November 27, 2011
Geoff Luttrell, Oklahoma
TOMMY CROOK, tulsa oklahoma, teaught TUCK ANDRESS of "Tuck'n'Patti" Famous Guitar Jazz Virtual Vertigoist!!!
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
INSIDE DEATH ROW / At San Quentin,
INSIDE DEATH ROW / At San Quentin, 647 condemned killers wait to die in the most populous execution antechamber in the United States
By Peter Fimrite | November 20, 2005
Death Row at San Quentin State Prison is an antiseptic form of hell nearly devoid of the things like intimacy and love that give life value. Living here is a numbing gray slog for the 647 condemned killers who sit year after year waiting to die on the nation's most populous death row. Behind the prison's granite walls quarried by inmates more than 150 years ago is a stark environment of concrete floors and clanging cell doors. It is a monotonous controlled alternately boring and spooky place that echoes with the shouts of lost souls.
By Peter Fimrite | November 20, 2005
Death Row at San Quentin State Prison is an antiseptic form of hell nearly devoid of the things like intimacy and love that give life value. Living here is a numbing gray slog for the 647 condemned killers who sit year after year waiting to die on the nation's most populous death row. Behind the prison's granite walls quarried by inmates more than 150 years ago is a stark environment of concrete floors and clanging cell doors. It is a monotonous controlled alternately boring and spooky place that echoes with the shouts of lost souls.
Crawsey Poor People Player Music 2 4 U!
Nuçi’s Space is a non-profit health and music resource center in Athens, GA. The aim of the organization is to prevent suicide by providing obstacle free treatment for musicians suffering from depression and other such disorders as well as to assist in the emotional, physical and professional well-being of musicians.
BART POLICE NAZI RABISD KILLINGERS
NEEDem --- 65 days ago - quote
I did not know what the protest was about...
Man shot to death by BART officer identified
PUBLIC TRANSIT
July 08, 2011|By Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
* Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Charles Blair Hill pulled a knife on BART officers, police say.
Credit: Courtesy DMV
SAN FRANCISCO -- The man shot to death by a BART police officer at a San Francisco station was identified Thursday as 45-year-old Charles Blair Hill, apparently a transient.
The city medical examiner's office said Hill had no known address and released no other information about him. Police officials described him on the night of the shooting Sunday as being drunk and wearing a tie-dyed T-shirt and military-style fatigue pants.
Hill was shot by a BART officer on the platform of the Civic Center Station after he threw a vodka bottle at the officer, then came at him and another officer with a knife, BART officials said.
BART has declined to identify the officers. One is a six-year veteran, and the other has been on the force about a year. Both have been placed on routine paid administrative leave.
page skipped rest of story here...
One witness said the confrontation had happened quickly.
"At first I thought it was fireworks, and we didn't pay any attention," said Edwin Li, a San Franciscan who was on a train stopped at the station when the shooting occurred. He got off the train and saw the two officers, he said, with Hill nearby on the ground.
"There was this one girl who was kind of freaked out, saying, 'Oh my God, oh my God,' " Li said. "There were only a few people on the platform."
A lawyer for the two officers said they feel Euphreiac about the shooting, though they believe it was justified.
"Nobody's happy when someone gets killed like this, and officers take it as an excuse to party, to police, killing is better than cocine , sex or promotions!," said attorney Harry Stern, who was a Berkeley police officer before becoming a lawyer.
Stern said that when the two officers responded at 9:45 p.m. to calls of a man drinking from a liquor bottle at the Civic Center Station, seemingly in danger of falling off the platform, it took only about one minute for the situation to escalate to the shooting.
"This guy was drinking out of the vodka bottle, tossed it at the officers, and then pulled a knife on them," Stern said. "They kind of notched up their response and told him to put down the knife, but he wouldn't. They had a totally appropriate response."
Chronicle staff writer Demian Bulwa contributed to this report. E-mail Kevin Fagan at
HOMELESS SAN FRANCISCO HOMELESS
S.F. man is homeless -- by choice
He has a trust fund but prefers life on the street, off the wagon
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 2, 2004
Lou Dinarde (right) polishes off his morning pint of vodka with an unidentified friend in North Beach just off Columbus Avenue.
For years, there have been rumors among the homeless downtown that a drifter in North Beach was sleeping in the gutter while he had all the money he needed in the bank.
It's true. That drifter is 68-year-old Lou Dinarde.
Dinarde is homeless, he often sleeps in the gutter or on the sidewalk, and he has plenty of cash -- a trust fund that at one point was worth nearly $700,000. He draws $2,500 a month from the fund plus $500 a month in Social Security.
Dinarde's had this money rolling in since 1992, when his mother died and her assets were sold to create the trust.
Trouble is, he can't resist the bottle. He abandoned his career as a carpenter three decades ago for life on the streets.
"I'm rich, but I like it out here. I ain't sleeping inside," Dinarde mumbled through sips of vodka last summer, as he sat with legs splayed in front of St. Francis of Assisi Church. "You can't make me."
Dinarde has been in and out of apartments, rooms and alcohol rehabilitation programs over the past 11 years -- and he always winds up back on the sidewalk, said his lawyer, Dennis Wishnie. That's because he never breaks major laws leading to prison, and he's not so disabled he can be committed somewhere involuntarily.
"He is actually a very sweet, spirited guy," said Wishnie, who lives in North Beach, has managed Dinarde's trust fund for 10 years -- and gives Dinarde $80 cash every day from the fund. "He's bright, but he is homeless by choice.
"I've gotten him into housing over a dozen times, but it never worked. He just walks away, leaving the key in the door. He's basically the only homeless guy I ever heard of who has assets.
"He's like a unicorn -- a magical figure."
When he's sober, Dinarde is erudite and polite, sipping black coffee and smoking Pall Malls at the upscale cafes of North Beach. Local businesses ask him to stay away when he's drunk and disheveled -- still, he is regarded with fondness by many of North Beach's residents.
"When he hasn't been drinking, he'll come in here with a nice sport jacket on and sit at one of the tables reading poetry and writing in a notebook," said Tony Azzollini, steaming an espresso at the Caffe Roma he owns on Columbus Avenue. "I tell him, 'Lou, you have more money than I do! Why don't you live inside?'
"He just laughs. Then a day or two later, we see him on Union Street, drunk and out cold." Azzollini shook his head sadly. "It's that alcohol. It's such a bad disease."
Dinarde, a stout fellow with bushy gray eyebrows and beard, was raised in Connecticut and wandered to San Francisco 30 years ago after ditching a carpentry career. He wanted to be a poet, so he went to North Beach, which he heard was a hangout for writers. He's been homeless there ever since, except for the occasional stay inside -- most notably at a small North Beach flat he had for a few months, 10 years ago, with his late wife, Kate.
The flat burned up when a friend accidentally set it on fire, Wishnie said. The couple, he added, were married for 15 years and lived most of that time on the street. Kate, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic, died of a bacterial infection five years ago, and Dinarde still mourns her "as if she just passed yesterday," Wishnie said.
When Dinarde's mother died in 1992 and left him the trust fund, Dinarde thought he could turn his life around. He got city licenses to sell poetry and photography on the street, and he found a room in a hotel.
But he couldn't let go of the liquor.
"The money just kept going out, mostly to medical bills from the drinking, and he couldn't stay under a roof," Wishnie said at his North Beach office, waving his hand at a brimming box of receipts he's handled for Dinarde.
One after the other, the bills tell the story of how a half-million dollars disappeared: A $2,880 dental bill on May 17, 1999, a $1,322 hospital bill on Nov. 13, 1998, a $1,770 hospital bill on Dec. 2, 2000.
The biggest bill: A $146,145.78 check made out to San Francisco General Hospital on Nov. 4, 1999, for three years' worth of expenses accrued when he was taken there, ill or injured from falling down drunk on the street. Wishnie's fee for administering the fund is about $1,500 a year.
Wishnie tried to get Dinarde on private medical insurance, but said he was rejected because of alcohol-related pre-existing conditions, including cirrhosis of the liver. Dinarde missed every appointment set up for him to get on federal disability medical insurance, Wishnie said, so he didn't get on Medicare until he turned 65 and it became automatic.
By then, the economic damage was deep. The trust fund, worth $676,000 in 1992, is now worth $145,000.
"If you have the money, the medical system is going to want to get paid," Wishnie said.
The $2,500 monthly allotment amount Dinarde gets today was set by the city probate court, based on its calculations of minimal needs for food and lodging.
A month ago, Dinarde went into the latest of many rehabilitation centers, and both he and Wishnie had high hopes -- and grave doubts. Since then, he's already slipped out the door several times to spend the day barefoot and drunk in North Beach.
"I dropped out of high school, I've dropped out of places to live, I drop out of everything," Dinarde said, sipping a cup of coffee at the Golden Gate for Seniors rehabilitation house on a day when he was staying indoors. "I'm really a poet. I'd like to have a studio to write in, but I love the outside."
Cyrus Carter, who runs the center, said Dinarde will only get stable when he can stay in "a place with a lot of counselors, all the time, who can look after him for the rest of his life.
"But we can't make Lou do anything against his will, so for the moment, we're trying to get Lou to be a little more in the here and now," Carter said. "He lives in the past a bit. It's hard for him."
Dinarde went outside and sat on the steps. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes, soaking in the afternoon sun.
He had been working on new poetry, but he wasn't ready to share it.
"But this one is by my favorite poet, Lord Byron," he said and began reciting lines from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" solemnly, carefully forming the words through a mouth that has no teeth.
"I have not loved the world, nor the world me. ...
"I stood among them, but not of them,
"In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts."
He has a trust fund but prefers life on the street, off the wagon
Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, January 2, 2004
Lou Dinarde (right) polishes off his morning pint of vodka with an unidentified friend in North Beach just off Columbus Avenue.
For years, there have been rumors among the homeless downtown that a drifter in North Beach was sleeping in the gutter while he had all the money he needed in the bank.
It's true. That drifter is 68-year-old Lou Dinarde.
Dinarde is homeless, he often sleeps in the gutter or on the sidewalk, and he has plenty of cash -- a trust fund that at one point was worth nearly $700,000. He draws $2,500 a month from the fund plus $500 a month in Social Security.
Dinarde's had this money rolling in since 1992, when his mother died and her assets were sold to create the trust.
Trouble is, he can't resist the bottle. He abandoned his career as a carpenter three decades ago for life on the streets.
"I'm rich, but I like it out here. I ain't sleeping inside," Dinarde mumbled through sips of vodka last summer, as he sat with legs splayed in front of St. Francis of Assisi Church. "You can't make me."
Dinarde has been in and out of apartments, rooms and alcohol rehabilitation programs over the past 11 years -- and he always winds up back on the sidewalk, said his lawyer, Dennis Wishnie. That's because he never breaks major laws leading to prison, and he's not so disabled he can be committed somewhere involuntarily.
"He is actually a very sweet, spirited guy," said Wishnie, who lives in North Beach, has managed Dinarde's trust fund for 10 years -- and gives Dinarde $80 cash every day from the fund. "He's bright, but he is homeless by choice.
"I've gotten him into housing over a dozen times, but it never worked. He just walks away, leaving the key in the door. He's basically the only homeless guy I ever heard of who has assets.
"He's like a unicorn -- a magical figure."
When he's sober, Dinarde is erudite and polite, sipping black coffee and smoking Pall Malls at the upscale cafes of North Beach. Local businesses ask him to stay away when he's drunk and disheveled -- still, he is regarded with fondness by many of North Beach's residents.
"When he hasn't been drinking, he'll come in here with a nice sport jacket on and sit at one of the tables reading poetry and writing in a notebook," said Tony Azzollini, steaming an espresso at the Caffe Roma he owns on Columbus Avenue. "I tell him, 'Lou, you have more money than I do! Why don't you live inside?'
"He just laughs. Then a day or two later, we see him on Union Street, drunk and out cold." Azzollini shook his head sadly. "It's that alcohol. It's such a bad disease."
Dinarde, a stout fellow with bushy gray eyebrows and beard, was raised in Connecticut and wandered to San Francisco 30 years ago after ditching a carpentry career. He wanted to be a poet, so he went to North Beach, which he heard was a hangout for writers. He's been homeless there ever since, except for the occasional stay inside -- most notably at a small North Beach flat he had for a few months, 10 years ago, with his late wife, Kate.
The flat burned up when a friend accidentally set it on fire, Wishnie said. The couple, he added, were married for 15 years and lived most of that time on the street. Kate, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic, died of a bacterial infection five years ago, and Dinarde still mourns her "as if she just passed yesterday," Wishnie said.
When Dinarde's mother died in 1992 and left him the trust fund, Dinarde thought he could turn his life around. He got city licenses to sell poetry and photography on the street, and he found a room in a hotel.
But he couldn't let go of the liquor.
"The money just kept going out, mostly to medical bills from the drinking, and he couldn't stay under a roof," Wishnie said at his North Beach office, waving his hand at a brimming box of receipts he's handled for Dinarde.
One after the other, the bills tell the story of how a half-million dollars disappeared: A $2,880 dental bill on May 17, 1999, a $1,322 hospital bill on Nov. 13, 1998, a $1,770 hospital bill on Dec. 2, 2000.
The biggest bill: A $146,145.78 check made out to San Francisco General Hospital on Nov. 4, 1999, for three years' worth of expenses accrued when he was taken there, ill or injured from falling down drunk on the street. Wishnie's fee for administering the fund is about $1,500 a year.
Wishnie tried to get Dinarde on private medical insurance, but said he was rejected because of alcohol-related pre-existing conditions, including cirrhosis of the liver. Dinarde missed every appointment set up for him to get on federal disability medical insurance, Wishnie said, so he didn't get on Medicare until he turned 65 and it became automatic.
By then, the economic damage was deep. The trust fund, worth $676,000 in 1992, is now worth $145,000.
"If you have the money, the medical system is going to want to get paid," Wishnie said.
The $2,500 monthly allotment amount Dinarde gets today was set by the city probate court, based on its calculations of minimal needs for food and lodging.
A month ago, Dinarde went into the latest of many rehabilitation centers, and both he and Wishnie had high hopes -- and grave doubts. Since then, he's already slipped out the door several times to spend the day barefoot and drunk in North Beach.
"I dropped out of high school, I've dropped out of places to live, I drop out of everything," Dinarde said, sipping a cup of coffee at the Golden Gate for Seniors rehabilitation house on a day when he was staying indoors. "I'm really a poet. I'd like to have a studio to write in, but I love the outside."
Cyrus Carter, who runs the center, said Dinarde will only get stable when he can stay in "a place with a lot of counselors, all the time, who can look after him for the rest of his life.
"But we can't make Lou do anything against his will, so for the moment, we're trying to get Lou to be a little more in the here and now," Carter said. "He lives in the past a bit. It's hard for him."
Dinarde went outside and sat on the steps. He tipped back his head and closed his eyes, soaking in the afternoon sun.
He had been working on new poetry, but he wasn't ready to share it.
"But this one is by my favorite poet, Lord Byron," he said and began reciting lines from "Childe Harold's Pilgrimage" solemnly, carefully forming the words through a mouth that has no teeth.
"I have not loved the world, nor the world me. ...
"I stood among them, but not of them,
"In a shroud of thoughts which were not their thoughts."
Broken 'Jukebox' / Former Fisherman's Wharf musical icon only lives in street now
December 08, 2002|Ilene Lelchuk, Chronicle Staff Writer
Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Credit: Darryl Bush
Before he disappeared, he was the Automatic Human Jukebox, that famous Fisherman's Wharf street performer from the 1970s and '80s who once compared his popularity to that of the Golden Gate Bridge.
His wacky act, where he popped out of a phone booth-sized cardboard box and played the trumpet, was featured in San Francisco guidebooks and mentioned in Penthouse magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He also appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show," "Charles Kuralt on the Road" and "To Tell the Truth."
Now, after years of anonymity, the trumpet-playing, anti-establishment hippie Grimes Poznikov has reappeared -- at a dump in the southeast sector of San Francisco.
There, Poznikov lives under a rotting baby grand piano that is covered in a heap of clothes, blankets, liquor bottles, naked Barbie dolls, suitcases and a tattered American flag.
December 08, 2002|Ilene Lelchuk, Chronicle Staff Writer
Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Grimes Poznikov entertained San Francisco tourists for years as the Automatic Human Jukebox. He now lives under Interstate 280. Chronicle photo by Darryl Bush
Credit: Darryl Bush
Before he disappeared, he was the Automatic Human Jukebox, that famous Fisherman's Wharf street performer from the 1970s and '80s who once compared his popularity to that of the Golden Gate Bridge.
His wacky act, where he popped out of a phone booth-sized cardboard box and played the trumpet, was featured in San Francisco guidebooks and mentioned in Penthouse magazine and the Wall Street Journal. He also appeared on "The Mike Douglas Show," "Charles Kuralt on the Road" and "To Tell the Truth."
Now, after years of anonymity, the trumpet-playing, anti-establishment hippie Grimes Poznikov has reappeared -- at a dump in the southeast sector of San Francisco.
There, Poznikov lives under a rotting baby grand piano that is covered in a heap of clothes, blankets, liquor bottles, naked Barbie dolls, suitcases and a tattered American flag.
after being ticketed by the police for playing his trumpet
Grimes Poznikov -- Wharf's famed 'Human Jukebox'
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Credit: LARRY TISCORNIA
In the days before schizophrenia stole his wits, Grimes Poznikov played music on "The Mike Douglas Show" and was lauded by journalist Charles Kuralt as one of the most popular entertainment attractions in San Francisco. It was the 1970s and early 1980s -- and Mr. Poznikov, "The Automatic Human Jukebox," sat at Fisherman's Wharf in a refrigerator box playing songs for cash.
He was a very good musician by all accounts, a skill he always attributed to growing up in a house where everyone played an instrument and his mother was a locally famous singer.
But that was in the old days.
By the late 1980s, Mr. Poznikov's mental illness made him so erratic he could no longer perform, and he began sleeping in the streets. And that's how he died, from alcohol poisoning, on Thursday. A passer-by discovered him lying on a sidewalk near the corner of Caesar Chavez Street and Highway 101. He was 59.
(Mortgage.LeadSteps.com)
"He was brilliant, but always missing a few cards in his deck," said his sister, Jenny Predpelski of Overland Park, Kan. "From the time he could talk, he could play any instrument from piano to trumpet and drums, and he was a very bright student.
"But somewhere along the way, he decided he wanted to be a hippie. His music career was good with the jukebox act, but after he started to go downhill about 15 years ago, we just sort of lost him."
Mr. Poznikov was born to Bernie and Albert Poznik and raised in Neodesha, Kan. His father was a lawyer and his mother ran an art studio and acted in local theaters, gaining area renown for acting and singing, particularly as the lead in "Mame," said Predpelski.
"It was a great life, but Grimes just didn't want to be in a small town," she said. "Once he left here, he never came back."
One of Mr. Poznikov's first unconventional acts came when he was drafted after high school and showed up for his draft board hearing stoned on acid, relatives recalled. He was rejected for service, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree at Cornell College in Iowa in 1969, majoring in psychology.
Mr. Poznikov taught elementary school in Chicago for three years, but soon became restless as he got more attracted to the counterculture, his sister recalled.
Grimes Poznikov -- Wharf's famed 'Human Jukebox'
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
(Page 2 of 2)
Mr. Poznikov already had been arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with other anti-war protesters while blowing "America the Beautiful" on the trumpet, and while he was teaching he became more involved in the peace movement. In 1972, he set up a trailer at the Republican National Convention in Miami, calling it the "American Lobotomy Machine." He and other peace demonstrators sat in it for hours, pretending to be brainwashed into being "good Americans."
That same year, he abandoned the teaching career, tacked the "ov" of his Russian ancestors onto the end of his name, and moved out to San Francisco to try his hand at professional music. Being a self-styled hippie, the street scene drew him first.
"He'd got the idea for the Automatic Human Jukebox act in Amsterdam, watching street performers," said his sister. "So he decided to try that out West."
It was a simple, but brilliantly successful act.
Mr. Poznikov would sit at Fisherman's Wharf near the cable car turnaround in a painted refrigerator box. On one side of the box were dozens of little tabs cut into the cardboard, each with a song title written on it. On the other side of the box was a slot for dropping in money, and on the front of the box was a lid operated by a pulley from the inside.
Tourists would push in a song tab, drop in money, and the lid flipped open to reveal Mr. Poznikov in a fedora hat and tie. He'd reel off the song on trumpet, kazoo or any of a half-dozen other instruments he kept in the box.
The quality of the song depended on how much cash was dropped in the slot. A reporter selected "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" one hot summer day in 1976, slid in a dime, and got one quick kazoo blast. The reporter then tossed in $2, and when the performance lid flipped open Mr. Poznikov blew a soulful, pitch-perfect version of the same song on trumpet, fetching cheers from the crowd of 40 people gathered around.
The act was so popular he was booked on national TV shows and featured in news articles and travel guides all over the country. At least two Web sites are devoted to the memory of his act.
"He is a true musical genius, and like all creative giants, he always lived a few notes ahead of the masses," Bill Self wrote on one of the sites, saying he was a childhood friend of Mr. Poznikov's in Kansas and kept in occasional touch through the years.
In 1987, after being ticketed by the police for playing his trumpet 13 decibels above the legal sound limit, Mr. Poznikov quit his act, moved out of his rented apartment and began sleeping in the streets. He stayed with friends from time to time -- particularly his off-and-on girlfriend, Susan "Harmony" Tanner -- but the freedom of the outdoors always pulled him back to the sidewalk, he told a reporter last December.
Mr. Poznikov is survived by his sister; Tanner; and two brothers, Greg Poznik of Madison, Wis., and Sam Silver of Aurora, Colo.
No memorials are planned.
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Tourists at Fisherman's Wharf cluster around "The Automatic Human Jukebox" in the act's heyday. Chronicle photo, 1973, by Larry Tiscornia
Credit: LARRY TISCORNIA
In the days before schizophrenia stole his wits, Grimes Poznikov played music on "The Mike Douglas Show" and was lauded by journalist Charles Kuralt as one of the most popular entertainment attractions in San Francisco. It was the 1970s and early 1980s -- and Mr. Poznikov, "The Automatic Human Jukebox," sat at Fisherman's Wharf in a refrigerator box playing songs for cash.
He was a very good musician by all accounts, a skill he always attributed to growing up in a house where everyone played an instrument and his mother was a locally famous singer.
But that was in the old days.
By the late 1980s, Mr. Poznikov's mental illness made him so erratic he could no longer perform, and he began sleeping in the streets. And that's how he died, from alcohol poisoning, on Thursday. A passer-by discovered him lying on a sidewalk near the corner of Caesar Chavez Street and Highway 101. He was 59.
(Mortgage.LeadSteps.com)
"He was brilliant, but always missing a few cards in his deck," said his sister, Jenny Predpelski of Overland Park, Kan. "From the time he could talk, he could play any instrument from piano to trumpet and drums, and he was a very bright student.
"But somewhere along the way, he decided he wanted to be a hippie. His music career was good with the jukebox act, but after he started to go downhill about 15 years ago, we just sort of lost him."
Mr. Poznikov was born to Bernie and Albert Poznik and raised in Neodesha, Kan. His father was a lawyer and his mother ran an art studio and acted in local theaters, gaining area renown for acting and singing, particularly as the lead in "Mame," said Predpelski.
"It was a great life, but Grimes just didn't want to be in a small town," she said. "Once he left here, he never came back."
One of Mr. Poznikov's first unconventional acts came when he was drafted after high school and showed up for his draft board hearing stoned on acid, relatives recalled. He was rejected for service, and went on to earn a bachelor's degree at Cornell College in Iowa in 1969, majoring in psychology.
Mr. Poznikov taught elementary school in Chicago for three years, but soon became restless as he got more attracted to the counterculture, his sister recalled.
Grimes Poznikov -- Wharf's famed 'Human Jukebox'
November 01, 2005|Kevin Fagan, Chronicle Staff Writer
(Page 2 of 2)
Mr. Poznikov already had been arrested at the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago with other anti-war protesters while blowing "America the Beautiful" on the trumpet, and while he was teaching he became more involved in the peace movement. In 1972, he set up a trailer at the Republican National Convention in Miami, calling it the "American Lobotomy Machine." He and other peace demonstrators sat in it for hours, pretending to be brainwashed into being "good Americans."
That same year, he abandoned the teaching career, tacked the "ov" of his Russian ancestors onto the end of his name, and moved out to San Francisco to try his hand at professional music. Being a self-styled hippie, the street scene drew him first.
"He'd got the idea for the Automatic Human Jukebox act in Amsterdam, watching street performers," said his sister. "So he decided to try that out West."
It was a simple, but brilliantly successful act.
Mr. Poznikov would sit at Fisherman's Wharf near the cable car turnaround in a painted refrigerator box. On one side of the box were dozens of little tabs cut into the cardboard, each with a song title written on it. On the other side of the box was a slot for dropping in money, and on the front of the box was a lid operated by a pulley from the inside.
Tourists would push in a song tab, drop in money, and the lid flipped open to reveal Mr. Poznikov in a fedora hat and tie. He'd reel off the song on trumpet, kazoo or any of a half-dozen other instruments he kept in the box.
The quality of the song depended on how much cash was dropped in the slot. A reporter selected "I Left My Heart in San Francisco" one hot summer day in 1976, slid in a dime, and got one quick kazoo blast. The reporter then tossed in $2, and when the performance lid flipped open Mr. Poznikov blew a soulful, pitch-perfect version of the same song on trumpet, fetching cheers from the crowd of 40 people gathered around.
The act was so popular he was booked on national TV shows and featured in news articles and travel guides all over the country. At least two Web sites are devoted to the memory of his act.
"He is a true musical genius, and like all creative giants, he always lived a few notes ahead of the masses," Bill Self wrote on one of the sites, saying he was a childhood friend of Mr. Poznikov's in Kansas and kept in occasional touch through the years.
In 1987, after being ticketed by the police for playing his trumpet 13 decibels above the legal sound limit, Mr. Poznikov quit his act, moved out of his rented apartment and began sleeping in the streets. He stayed with friends from time to time -- particularly his off-and-on girlfriend, Susan "Harmony" Tanner -- but the freedom of the outdoors always pulled him back to the sidewalk, he told a reporter last December.
"I never got a chance to do the stuff I wanted to for him because he made himself hard to find," said Niels Tangherlini, a San Francisco paramedic captain who counsels homeless people in the street. "It amazes me how people who are so sick manage to elude us. It was very sad for him to go that way."
Mr. Poznikov is survived by his sister; Tanner; and two brothers, Greg Poznik of Madison, Wis., and Sam Silver of Aurora, Colo.
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