When I was 21 years old, I moved from New York to Berkeley and lived in a one-bedroom apartment on Derby and Telegraph with two college friends. None of us had cell phones or computers in 1993, and we spent most of our free time shooting pool at the Bison Brewery and reading books from the Berkeley library.

My roommate, Seth, would get very excited about books – especially Dostoevsky and Camus - and he introduced me to many authors I’d never read. To him, I passed John Gardner’s Grendel, Andre Gide’s The Immoralist, and Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations, and he gave me books by John Fante, Richard Brautigan, Alan Watts and Kenneth Patchen. The poet, Patchen, thrilled us both to no end.

Kenneth Patchen was born on December 13t h, 1911, in a mining town near Youngstown Ohio. He had little education beyond high school, but had an essay published in the New York Times at age 18, and wrote prolifically for the remaining forty years of his life, the last twenty in San Francisco and Palo Alto, where he died in 1972. Along with Kenneth Rexroth, Patchen was the creator of ‘Jazz Poetry’ and travelled the country in the early sixties, performing with Langston Hughes and Charles Mingus. Patchen was friends with Henry Miller, E. E. Cummings and Jim Morrison, and he is often associated with the beat poets, though he referred to Ginsburg, Kerouac and the gang as ‘the freakshow’.

Patchen’s poetry gave voice to our anger and joy with the world, and let us know we were not alone. He was silly, absurd and whimsical, combining words that have never gone together, and he was outraged at the way people treat one another, and at the post-industrial, capitalist America that inevitably crushed the human spirit. I have a weathered copy of Because It Is, probably bought at the Ashby Bart flea market twenty-five years ago, with an inscription from 1968 that reads: “Sissy, my dear, When life becomes a bit much, ponder Patchen. Love, Mom.”

Come celebrate Patchen with us this weekend and raise a glass to art as salve. I’ll leave my copy of Because It Is at the bar so you can laugh it all off yourselves.

TONIGHT: Thursday Night Flights! ALL FRENCH REDS and WHITES featuring wines from the Côtes Catalanes, Loire Valley, Minervois, and Corbieres. Flights $12 from 5-9 and wines by the glass until 9pm.

SATURDAY 12/14: Domestic Tasting Flights and BABS Pop Up: BBQ and Cookie Explosion: Mouthwatering barbecue and tempting holiday cookies by Dorian, and tasting flights featuring wines from Edmunds St. John, Drench, Bucklin, and Bow & Arrow. Flights $15 from 2-6pm, Food Pop Up from 2-6pm, and wines by the glass until 9pm. 

SUNDAY 12/15: Spanish tasting flights: Albariño and Garnacha from Rías Baixas, Priorat & Madrid. Flights $15 from 2-6 and wines by the glass until 8pm.   

Cheers,   

Max