Paul Kaufman | The Che Underground

London Calling

April 21, 2012September 29, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Paul Kaufman of Manual Scan and Lemons Are Yellow reflects on the decline of empires.)

My favorite albums were always those that weren’t just a collection of songs but presented a unified picture of their time and place, a map to their own little world. Coming of musical age in the late ’70s, one notable example was the first Clash LP, which presented a rich portrait of London as a decayed and violent landscape where one struggled for survival. This echoed the theme of how the lost power and fortune of the British empire diminished the expectations of its current citizens; this was presented by many bands, from the Kinks to the Jam.

These were distant but clever and interesting voices, and very different from the “Morning in America” world view that pervaded the US in the ’80s. They seemed especially far from San Diego, where the nearly perpetual sunshine provides a completely different backdrop from London’s rain.

Record stores: Unchained vinyl

April 23, 2012August 13, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman recalls a time when music shopping meant leaving the house.)

If you’re like me, you spent many hours flipping through records at stores, looking for treasures.

As a small kid, I started out locally, on Garnet Ave. in Pacific Beach. The Wherehouse and Licorice Pizza were a couple of blocks apart, so when I was just learning my history, I could spend hours looking at album covers and picking up magazines at those places.

As a 13-year-old, something commercially available was usually on the top of my list (early Badfinger fixation), and those sorts of places usually fit the bill. For a while, Licorice Pizza had a cut-out bin that had some real finds. They also carried imports, and I have distinct memories of saving up the princely sum of $2.50 each to buy the early Sex Pistols and Clash 45s (with real art sleeves! And no big hole in the middle!). It was a double thrill, because it was the closest thing to international travel I would experience until I was much older.

El sabor de San Diego

December 11, 2017July 19, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(For Marcel Proust, the evocative taste of a madeline inspired seven volumes of childhood reminiscence. When in San Diego, Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman employs a different memory aid — this one wrapped in a tortilla.)
Now that I live 2,000 light years from home, I often crave the foods of San Diego. Certainly, the most distinctive cuisine of Southern California came across the border from Mexico. And it wasn’t until I moved to the SF Bay area in late ’82 that I realized that a few items in the Mexican food of my youth were not replicated 500 miles to the north.

For me, the chief example is the burrito. In San Diego, burritos had lively and very strong individual personalities: carne asada meant grilled steak, with some guacamole and onion, and that’s it. There was no confusing it with a burrito based on a chicken stew or machaca.

Get a job!

January 1, 2011June 27, 2008 by Paul Kaufman

(In which Manual Scan/Lemons Are Yellow vet Paul Kaufman revisits the day jobs of our misspent youth.)

You asked for it … There have been multiple requests for a post about the various jobs we held so that we could afford all the gasoline, musical equipment, hip apparel and rolled tacos that propelled the San Diego scene.

I’ll start the proceedings with two rather uncool jobs that I held; since both establishments are still in business, the names will removed to protect the guilty. The first was a small Italian eatery where I washed dishes. The work itself was OK, but there was a creepy and exploitative relationship between the owner and the crew.