Bob Sparks, community activist, 1938-1995
Carol Denney's songs touch your heart and put your conscience on high alert.
Shelley Posen of the folk trio Finest Kind, author of "No More Fish, No Fishermen", 3-26-04
Fight song: There aren’t any good protest songs anymore. Oh, there’s the ubiquitous “Hey hey, ho, ho, [fill in the blank] has got to go,” which is a big reason Bites avoids demonstrations of any sort.
So, Bites was happy to hear about an Ochsian little ditty called “The PG&E song,” or “Write the check and shut up.” It was actually cooked up by Bay Area artist Carol Denney in 2001, around the time PG&E declared bankruptcy. Check out the (very abridged) last verse, which Bites thinks sounds eerily familiar: “Go on and buy up our wires and our lines / We got you right where the sun never shines / You think you owe ’cause we’ve messed with your minds / ... and you’ll pay ’til you’re down to your last little dimes / Cause you’re used to it, aren’t you, shut up.” You can hear the whole song at www.caroldenney.com/pgesong.htm.
Sacramento News and Review, January 2006
"Folk hero."
The Daily Planet, January 2004
"Amazing on ice."
The Periodic Postal, January 2001
"Best of the Bay."
San Francisco Bay Guardian, August 2001
"A political superhero to some. A nasty little mosquito slowly
sucking blood on a summer day to others. Nosier than Larry King, quicker
of wit than a speeding Robin Williams, she's ... the quasi-mild-mannered
Carol Denney. "
Angela Hill for the Oakland Tribune, March 2001
"Local gold."
Strings, acoustic music showcase in Emeryville
"Damn, look at those knockers."
Barnaby Wild, critic for the Boise Bee
"What's this doing in my soup?"
Doris Ajar, Reality Monitor for the Harmonic Convergence
"Berkeley's funniest, most radical songwriter."
The Freight and Salvage, Berkeley
"There's no one I'd rather have on the frontlines."
Bob Sparks, community activist, 1938-1995
"Defendants Denney...are among the 'key leaders' of the agitators.....rather than protest peacefully and non-violently, the defendants ... have encouraged and instigated acts of vandalism and violence..."
University of California Regents, 1992, in "The UC Regents versus Nadel, Denney, Sparks, Lee, and Does 1 through 50," their unsuccessful SLAPP-suit against free speech
"...I'm just sending you this note to tell you how much your song "The Rich Will Never Be Poor" has taken over my synapses. It's become a musical catch in my brain: I find myself mentally humming it a hundred times a day. It's a terrific song, in the tradition of the 18th and 19th century English Working class anti-establishment songs that Roy Palmer and Ewan MacColl have put before us. It's also wonderfully performed on your CD, with a beguiling harmony line I'm still trying to fathom. Best of luck with the CD...."
Shelley Posen of The Finest Kind, author of "No More Fish, No Fishermen."
"Better than morphine."
Pam Derks, webwizard for the University of California Extension.
"Yes."
Former Berkeley City Manager Michael Brown, under oath at Carol Denney's criminal trial for alleged assault on the Chief of Police, in response to a question as to whether or not he thought it was possible that Carol Denney deliberately set the 1991 Oakland fire*
"If government is compelled to guarantee the truth of its factual assertions on matters of public interest, its speech would be substantially inhibited, and the citizenry would be less informed."
San Francisco Appellate Court Judge Donald King, rejecting the appeal of the summary dismissal of the SLAPP-suit defendants' cross-complaint for defamation. If King's comment makes sense to you, see a doctor immediately.
"Art. Art. Art. If you say it enough you sound like a barking dog."
Carol Denney
* Carol Denney was aquitted of all charges.
THE SCENE: Meeting of the Berkeley Mock City Council
Maybe politics is funnier when it takes itself seriously
Steven Winn, Friday, August 16, 2002
At the risk of major satirical redundancy, a Berkeley Mock City Council convened in the Old City Hall chambers this week.
The scripted show, presented by the Berkeley Arts Festival and simulcast on Cable BTV (Channel 25), bore a faithful resemblance to the genuine civic article. Procedural maneuvers, self-serving speeches, public backstabbing, liberal grandstanding and mind-numbing minutiae laid waste to three innocent hours Tuesday. It felt like an authentic council meeting, right down to the voice-distorting microphones and uncomfortable wooden seats for the audience, which is to say it felt like being slowly buried alive.
Writer-director George Coates deployed a cast of eight mock council members,
Mister Madam Mayor (Jo Mohrbach) and assorted bureaucratic drones in the cause of poking fun at a Berkeley body politic that's routinely riddled with scorn in the real world. "As far as a laughingstock," observed the show's woolly city manager (Lance Brady), "the city is already heavily invested in that."
......
The fiscal conservative Mozzarella (a part read by Doctor Mozzarella in the hall-of-mirrors casting) argued that "under God" could be a lifestyle choice, a brand like Nike or the Gap. The cheesehead then free-associated to kids miffed at having to check their guns at school entrances.
Elaborate inaction was the dominant order of business. "We have much to do and too much time to do it," aphorized Mohrbach, whose stature and facial features lightly echo the real Berkeley Mayor Shirley Dean's. Substitute motions for the substitute motion failed. A dauntingly affectless city attorney (Carol Denney) stunned the entire council to sleep with one of several torturous legal explications.
Coates, best known for sense-massaging shows with his eponymous George Coates Performance Works, scattered assorted stunts and plotlines through the evening. The cast sang the "Popeye" theme. Councilman Stoney (Stoney Burke) took off his shirt and played an irascible nudist. Tie-dyed, headbanded Councilman Gruve (Mark McDonald) wandered off in search of his meds.
Lorrain Taylor peeled off one of the best lines of the night when responding to some absurd policy that might close Berkeley's stores and shut down the university: "Is there a downside?" she asked.
San Francisco Mime Troupe veteran Ed Holmes put in a late appearance as Igor Cheney, the vice president's half brother and commissioner for inner peace and security. "Yeah, I've got 'em shaking in their Birkenstocks," he muttered into his cell phone.
E-mail Steven Winn at swinn@sfchronicle.com.