Rio Rancho Estates - The Nightmare Unleashed


Tribune caption: Earthmovers are the only occupants of what will one day be Rio Rancho's new Downtown six miles west of the city's current center. In this aerial photo, Unser Boulevard runs along the bottom of the photo, crossed by the under-construction extension of King Boulevard. (Craig Fritz/Tribune)

Nothing in my life has been so bothersome to watch as the relentless, sprawling growth of Rio Rancho Estates, west of my hometown of Corrales (which, in turn, is NW of Albuquerque, NM). Nothing can stop the cancerous spread of Rio Rancho, with its utter contempt for the land and the living creatures on it. [Note: I've had many good friends from Rio Rancho over the years - my complaint is with the form of development, not the people].

The most ominous part of the growth is that there seems to be no natural limit for it. Rio Rancho, and the WESCORP development planned further to the west could eventually dwarf Albuquerque, and become even larger than, say, Phoenix. But even then, there would be no natural stopping point. It could outstrip LA even, and envelope any and every possible barrier, spilling past Mt. Taylor, chewing north and south, and west, west, west. Only the spread of a contagious, fatal human virus could stop it.

The Albuquerque Tribune has recently run a special series, looking at the feeding, breeding, building, despoiling horde out there.

Today, this suburban Shangri-La is just a few subdivisions away from becoming the third-largest city in New Mexico, behind Albuquerque and Las Cruces. In a few years, its borders are expected to span a massive 300 to 400 square miles - nearly twice the geographic size of Albuquerque and Las Cruces combined.

In the last Ice Age, Rio Rancho used to be a vast 400 square mile Serengeti Plain, with mammoths, camels, and other large grazing animals roaming around. There are plenty of red, clayish, river-mud-like rocks, for example, in the hill north of the Country Club, that indicate the Rio Grande once wandered across that vast area. The Rio Grande eventually settled into its current valley near the Sandia Mountains, and the vast plain dried out a vast steppe, with its own, unique charm.

Now, the place is being carved up, and what little life left is being systematically erased.

It’s a strange social environment too. Development always takes surprising turns out in Rio Rancho. The place has developed a strange, schizophrenic dichotomy between those homeowners who built their own homes in detached independence, and those who have their homes built for them, as part of clashing subdivisions. A drive up Highway 528 just highlights the strange weirdness of the place – the clones and the cowboys. Are they in harmony? Or are they at war? Or are they all – just plain weird? What must it be like to be a kid there, growing up?

"It was a mesa with millions of tumbleweeds," longtime resident Arturo Boniello says of the nowhere he bought into in the 1970s. "It was a bunch of nothing."

People misremember their own history. No, the tumbleweeds sprouted up in your wake! Tumbleweed is an opportunistic plant – it grows in disturbed soils. If the place had been left in a more-natural state, there wouldn’t have been nearly so many tumbleweeds!

When I was 15, I used to walk from Corrales to Rio Rancho, where I’d either go visit friends (particularly Jeff Anderson) or go to work at a tree nursery where I had a summer job (Jeff helped get me that job). I remember the two of us once approached a lonely, unfenced, modern-looking suburban house that had sprung up suddenly along my usual path. Dust blew everywhere from the disturbed soil. I heard a lonely, frightened man with a Brooklyn accent warily shout hello. We said hello back – we meant no harm, and we were just passing by – but I always wondered what he was thinking, lost and adrift in this strange, new, sunny, barren world, where unknown teenagers can just walk right up to your door, or buzz past on dirt bikes.

I could see the rapid transformation of the place, how grading the hills above Corrales stripped the sugar sand of any coherence whatsoever, allowing instant arroyos to be made when the summer thunderstorms came along. One 30-foot deep arroyo appeared overnight in 1974, north of Ella Drive, where Corrales and Rio Rancho shared a boundary, and where the Rio Rancho folks had unwisely decided to dump water from the gutters of Corrales Heights. Lots of money was spent corralling that damage in. A dam was built, but there was enough water fetch on the face of the dam itself to allow continued arroyo development downstream, dam or not: the 30-foot deep arroyo became 50-feet deep below the dam. I can only imagine what a wretched mess that particular place must be, 30 years later.


This picture epitomizes everything that angers me about Rio Rancho: the dunes, like all major soil disturbances out there, are pretty-much man-made. Tribune caption: Vincenzo La Mendola, 10, rides down a sand dune north of Northern Boulevard on Unser Boulevard. Vincenzo's grandfather moved to Albuquerque in 1974 from New York after seeing real estate advertisements; he later moved to Rio Rancho. The dunes are typical of what all of Rio Rancho once looked like, but they are destined to become the city's new Downtown. (Craig Fritz/Tribune)

In the beginning of Rio Rancho Estates was the Word, and the Word was Greed:

The campaign was concocted by a fledgling New York conglomerate called American Reality and Petroleum Co. - AMREP for short - whose main stock in trade before Rio Rancho had been mail-order roses.

"I got those advertisements showing rivers and green grass, green, beautiful," Boniello says. "I hesitated when they started coming, but those mailed things kept coming."

…Rio Rancho, they said, was a lucrative investment, costing as little as $10 down for half-acre lots, which started in the 1960s at $795, but reaping as much or more than 150 percent in resale values as the shining metropolis of Albuquerque spilled westward.

Rio Rancho, they said, offered fishing, camping, swimming and golfing in a place where the sun shone 360 days a year. It sloped along "one of the greenest most fertile valleys in the world," the brochures bragged. It was "a resort region featuring giant lakes," another said.

…By 1969, some 1,500 people lived in Rio Rancho. The community had one police officer and a volunteer sheriff's posse. …New Yorkers then made up a large percentage of the population, earning Rio Rancho the nickname "Little New York" and making memberships to the New York Club the hottest social ticket in town.

…"There is no question that Intel made this place," Forbes says. "It exploded afterward. Before, we were like one big, happy family here, even though we were all different religions and backgrounds. Unfortunately, it's changing."

The place is straining to stay ahead of the boom:

This school year, more than 13,621 students are enrolled in the district's 16 schools, up from about 5,905 in seven schools in 1994, when the district began.

…To help pay for the buildings to house such successes, Rio Rancho voters in 2003 approved the maximum sale of general obligation bonds, taxing themselves to the limit and maxing the district's bonding capacity.

…Hveem has seen the high school's population skyrocket from about 2,000 in 1997 to 3,481 students in the 2004-05 school year, 693 more than the second-largest school in the state, Cibola, at 2,788. Hveem says this year's population could reach about 3,700.

And the boosters:

Not surprisingly, Mayor Jim Owen, a hopelessly optimistic man who can make a weed seem like a rose, sees it differently.

Rio Rancho, he says, is a clean slate, free of the usual mistakes older cities have made. Its personality is broad, fresh, American.

"We're a good blend, a new breed," he says. "We're the maverick people who can get things done."

No, you are a parasitic clone.

"In 1995, there was not one stick of wood out here," he says. "Now it's rooftops as far as the eye can see."

A newcomer might see ugly, uncontrolled sprawl. Owen sees a beautiful future.

"We'll be that big because we can be that big," he says. "Albuquerque is hemmed in, but Rio Rancho has room to grow."

…Finishing up his first term as mayor, Owen has turned into the city's primary salesman, a veritable P.T. Barnum.

His stories of the old days act as the prologue to a tale of unparalleled growth, of a city with so much potential he terms it "the Dallas to Albuquerque's Fort Worth."

"I'm the one that coined the phrase," he says of his Dallas reference. "Everybody thought I was insane.

"But everybody's saying it now."

By Owen's estimate, Rio Rancho could someday grow to almost 400 square miles once it envelops all the land he hopes to annex.

If that comes to fruition, Rio Rancho would more than double the land of present-day Albuquerque.

"We can be that big. Albuquerque can't be that big," Owen says. "The only way they can move is west, and they have no heart to move west.

"We will go west all the way to Laguna (Pueblo)."

... Nearly 90 subdivisions are under construction.

"You can't fight growth," he says. "We exist as a result of being able to have affordable housing. We're trying to build this community in such a way that you don't have to go to Albuquerque and Santa Fe."

One good feature of the Tribune series is to focus on the role of “redevelopment” in trying to establish some coherence to development in Rio Rancho. Redevelopment in such a place is like trying to repair the damage caused by a suicide bomber: civic planning would have been a better thing to do, but who has the time to plan during an explosion:

"Redevelopment is the acquisition of property for the public good," Tollefson says.

Using powers granted by the state, a municipality like Rio Rancho can buy individually owned lots in tracts of land that have not been developed or are developing too slowly.

...The city of Rio Rancho, incorporated in 1981 and now with a population of about 70,000, uses redevelopment as a tool for what it calls orderly growth.

…Matt DeAveiro of Coldwell Banker, who has been selling real estate in Rio Rancho for 18 years, says the redevelopment process has two sides. Owners fret the process will cheat them out of a fair price, he says, but the money might be the only chance they have to get anything out of their unimproved land.

"The only way you are going to improve those properties is by bringing utilities in, and (individual owners) are not going to do that because they can't afford to," he says.

"And redevelopment is the only way the city can go forward and help citizens throughout the community."

According to Tollefson, roughly 25 percent of Rio Rancho's 103 square miles is developed or under development.

...Tollefson says tracts selected for redevelopment are those adjacent to or surrounded by developed tracts and so are those that have immediate access to infrastructure.

"Rio Rancho wants to retain a rural character and large lots in some areas," Tollefson says. "We want a diverse mix of residential development.

Rio Rancho has never had a rural character, and never will. It is hostile to rural values, like living off the land, rather than grading it into oblivion.

Their population estimates four years ago showed Rio Rancho would be home to 100,000 people by 2020. Now officials peg the total at 125,000 by 2010.

At that rate, the city will add about 11,000 people a year, Tollefson says.

To pay the tab for so much development, Rio Rancho in 1995 started an impact fee system, charging developers for improvements like roads and parks.

"In terms of financial improvements, we're able to keep up because of impact fees," Tollefson says. To hold that trend, city councilors have proposed raising the fees by 51.4 percent. As it is, an average house price includes $6,094 in impact fees. That would rise to $9,229 by January 2007.

In Albuquerque, impact fees - increased in July of this year - vary depending on the location of the house. A 2,000-square-foot house on the West Side, for example, includes $8,000 in impact fees; something similar in Nob Hill includes $1,332 in fees.

The place eats resources too:

In securing a future with water, Rio Rancho must play catch-up to Albuquerque, where Duke City officials in the early 1960s set up the San Juan-Chama project, giving it the right to sip water from the Rio Grande.

Rio Rancho, by contrast, must keep buying water rights under a permit granted by the state Engineer's Office. So far, says state Engineer John D’Antonio, the city is on the right path.

"There is enough, but it gets increasingly harder to find water and land to take out of (agricultural) production," he says. "It's going to be expensive. Water rights are available, but it's difficult to find willing sellers."

Costs vary, but water rights have sold for several thousand dollars an acre-foot in the Middle Rio Grande Valley. Under a 1979 permit with the state Engineer's Office, Rio Rancho is entitled to 12,000 acre-feet of water a year but must offset the effect of its pumping on the Rio Grande.

What can stop the sprawl? The counter-culture can’t do it…

There it lies, at the end of Rainbow Boulevard, a secret treasure.

Where the rough dirt road stops, an ancient escarpment drops into the scrubby vastness of the Sandoval County desert. Silently, it marks the northeast border of Rio Rancho with a stunning, postcard-worthy view.

Gilbert and Virginia Otterstetter, living in a solar-powered trailer just three uninhabited miles from the site, have it mostly to themselves. For now. But in about five years, Rainbow Boulevard will be paved and lined by houses, and the secret treasure won't be much of a secret anymore.

Gilbert, 62, and Virginia, 60, moved there for the solitude, for the big sky, for the independence. The sun powers their hot water heater, oven and electricity. A friends hauls 1,500 gallons of water to them for $50.

"We are totally off the grid. We don't owe anyone anything," Virginia says.

…"Eventually they are going to be out here," Virginia says. "But are they going to want to build around my ugly trailer?"

She doesn't think so. She worries that a developer, as has happened in the city's past, will persuade the city to use eminent domain to claim her plot so it can be absorbed into a tidier development parcel.

I liked the words of V.B. Price:

I've never been a fan of the concept of Rio Rancho - a supersprawl, developer city built around the Eisenhower-era fiction of limitless water and limitless petroleum, a generic American place plopped on a distinctive New Mexican landscape, with no ecological or cultural sensitivity and no conservation strategy, selling people "affordable housing" miles away from most of their jobs.

…Granted, Rio Rancho is an economic competitor. But even with Intel's semiconductor plant there, the city's self-promotion as a "tech-savvy community," with broadband for all, and its expanding call center industry, Rio Rancho is still an economic parasite on Albuquerque, where most of its jobs and cultural attractions reside.

From an airplane, before Rio Rancho became a city, the area's endless miles of bulldozed roads seemed to many New Mexicans like airstrips for an invasion from Long Island, N.Y. And as Rio Rancho has grown, it has, indeed, invaded some of the most beautiful country in our area, sprawling right up to U.S. 550, without any buffer zone. The mountain-blocking walls on N.M. 528 along River's Edge make driving in Rio Rancho like driving in occupied territory.

It's for reasons like this that many New Mexicans see Rio Rancho more as a land-gobbling amoeba than a City of Vision.

It's worrisome Rio Rancho is a city that's growing beyond its water supply and that's clogging the interstates into Albuquerque with lung-wrecking traffic congestion.

Rio Rancho's water problems could get serious, especially if it tries to grow to 100,000 residents by 2020. Right now, it's in a struggle with the state Engineer's Office over transferring water rights from Sierra County. Rio Rancho's growth means taking water from rural places that might like to do a little of their own growing one day.

If Rio Rancho does continue to grow, I wonder if it will feel some of the animosity from rural New Mexico legislators that's always directed a Albuquerque. At least that would be sharing a burden.

Remember, Sierra County is more than 150 miles away. Rio Rancho, the behemoth child, is hungry, and getting hungrier....

Three Pieces, or Two?

There is some question regarding how the HMS Titanic sunk in 1912:

Undersea explorers said Monday that the discovery of more wreckage from the Titanic suggests that the luxury liner broke into three sections -- not two, as commonly thought -- and thus sank faster than previously believed.

So, how can DMTC simulate what really happened to the Titanic? Special effects:

The wind began to switch - the house to pitch and suddenly
the hinges started to unhitch....

The house began to pitch. The kitchen took a slitch.
It landed on the Wicked Witch (of the North ... Atlantic)
in the middle of a ditch,

This is what will happen to the "house" that Mike Mac will build!

The Wasted Teachings of Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome

Gabe quotes, from Meditations, Book V, No. 28:

Art thou angry with him whose arm-pits stink? Art thou angry with him whose mouth smells foul? What good will this anger do thee? He has such a mouth, he has such arm-pits: it is necessary that such an emanation must come from such things—but the man has reason, it will be said, and he is able, if he takes pains, to discover wherein he offends—I wish thee well of thy discovery. Well then, and thou hast reason: by thy rational faculty stir up his rational faculty; show him his error, admonish him. For if he listens, thou wilt cure him, and there is no need of passion; leave that to actors and whores.

I respond:

Hmmm..... It's good not to get too excited by such things, I suppose. But those actors, and those whores: who can blame them?

Gabe replies with a pithy saying:

All roads lead to Rome.

I respond:

Including the road with the smelly armpit/bad breath guy, but I'm not going to get all passionate about it, like the hos and the actors do.

Gabe replies:

You cannot step into the same river twice.

I respond:

Smelly armpit/bad breath guy never stepped in a river at all: otherwise, the discussion would be moot.

Gabe puzzles at the word "hos". I elaborate:

There he is! He's foul, but he's coming to Rome, and he's got bling-bling!

To emphasize, Marcus Aurelius is well-known as the last, and the philosophic best, of the Five Good Emperors of Rome.

"Into The Woods" Closes

Nice show, but more fatalities (15) than any show since "Sweeney Todd," and with a cast of only 17, or so, it's just too many casualties: City of Davis health and safety code demands no more than ten (10) fatalities per production. But I guess that won't work, with "Titanic" coming up, with its 1,000+ casualties. Weren't all those folks in steerage anyway? In any event, "Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat" is casualty-lite, with only a missing goat or two, so maybe it all averages out.

Can't Shake Epsilon

Persistent hurricane!:

The storm was about 1,000 miles west of Portugal's Azores islands and moving to the east at 12 mph (19 kph).

"Epsilon is a tenacious tropical cyclone which has maintained hurricane intensity over cool waters and apparent unfavorable atmospheric conditions," the Miami-based hurricane center said. But it reiterated its expectation that the storm would steadily weaken over the next few days.

Dreamcoat Productions

Jocelyn Price says that Julia Spangler and herself, under the sponsorship of Julia's mother, Helen, are going to put together a theater company of their own, aimed at teens, called Dreamcoat Productions. They have several projects under consideration for the coming year, with performances planned for DMTC's Hoblit Performing Arts Center.

It seems that if the number of available facilities expands, the number of theater companies will expand as well, to fill the available space. The proliferation of theaters in the Sacramento area over the last decade might be partly responsible for the proliferation of theater companies in the same time period. Makes the Elly Awards process more complicated than ever, these days.

I had thought that DMTC should cast about looking for dance companies to fill DMTC's dark nights at the New Theater, or other perhaps other embryonic theater companies, like Flying Monkey or Big Barn, would make approaches to us. There's no reason, of course, why we can't give birth to our own companies, like Dreamcoat Productions.

And we might still hear from other folks. Jennifer Lin says that Sacramento Opera is beginning to look for a smaller facility than the Sacramento Community Center, or the Mondavi, for smaller productions. Perhaps we'll hear from a number of people over the next year. We'll need to come up with rules and procedures. Right now, all I can think of is some basic rules: no spitting on stage, no fireworks or large predatory animals. Mimes would be OK, though. We need mimes - theater companies talk too much, in general.

Ask The Professor

A friend and climate-change skeptic, W., quizzes J., a professor of climatology, about the state of climatology. As I understand it, in the last 25 years, there has been a shift away from chemical explanations for climate change (carbon sequestration in the oceans, as affected by carbonate/bicarbonate sensitivity to temperature), and a shift towards thermohaline circulation sensitivity towards salinity. Presumably the fairly-rapid temperature changes of the Pleistocene can't be explained by deep oceanic processes, which don't change that rapidly. For other, probably more authoritative answers, J. suggests Realclimate.org.

W. writes:

Hey Marc: Got some questions about climate change / global warming. Back in 1990 I taught a night school course for teachers on Climate Change (textbook was Schneider & Londer). I've lost track with the thinking, but now I want to catch up somewhat. So here are the questions:

1.) As of 1990, climatic variation on a scale of 1-10 years was becoming understood in terms of ENSO. Variation on a scale of 10,000-100,000 years was well understood as Milankovitch cycles. But variation on time scales of 10-10,000 years was not understood much at all. There was speculation of CO2 sequestration and release in vertical ocean convections. What is the present interpretation of this time scale? Something in one of your recent emails made me think the vertical ocean circulation has been successful.

J. answers:

It depends on which period you're interested in. In the late Pleistocene, the large temperature fluctuations that occurred were probably caused because of an instability in the Laurentide Ice Sheet (the big one that covered most of Canada). Basically the idea here is that influxes of freshwater into the North Atlantic and the subsequent reduction in the salinity of the surface waters caused a weakening in the North Atlantic thermohaline circulation, thus reducing heat transport into the high latitudes of the Northern Hemisphere. (One example: the Younger Dryas Event, which may have been caused by a sudden re-direction of water from glacial Lake Agassiz.

In the Holocene, the amplitude of temperature changes has been much smaller; various possible mechanisms have been proposed as causes: changes in solar energy flux, increased albedo due to volcanic eruptions, and "internal variability" of the climate system, e.g., things like ENSO, PDO, etc. Nothing definitive, though, as far as I can tell. (Reconstructions of solar-energy flux are very dubious; they are essentially extrapolations based on a rather meager dataset -- 25 years of satellite measurements.)

2.) In 1990, the big unknown in climatic modelling was albedo change due to cloud cover -- will warming result in positive or negative feedback? You seemed to say that this was still an unknown. Is this correct? If so, how much confidence do you have in all the models which predict significant warming over the next century?

J. answers:

There are two main sources of uncertainty: (1) future anthropogenic emissions of greenhouse gases and (2) the effect of cloud feedbacks. For a given emissions scenario, it is still true that the biggest source of uncertainty is the cloud feedback. The latest model intercomparison study that I have seen still shows that the feedback is positive in some and negative in others.

"Confidence"? Hard to say. There is such a range in model sensitivities and of emissions scenarios that it seems likely that the future warming is encompassed by the projections that have been made. The lowest projected temperature rise, made using the least sensitive model (one in which the cloud feedback is strongly negative) and the lowest credible emissions scenario (in which emissions in 2100 are actually lower than 1980 values) is 1.5 degrees C.

3.) In 1990, when talking with believers in anthropogenic warming who pointed to demonstrated warming since 1850 (correlating with the Industrial Revolution), I would counter by saying one could interpret the present warming regime as beginning around 1700, when the Little Ice Age began to let up. In that case, the warming would predate the Industrial Revolution, and would therefore require a different (or at least an additional) cause. Nobody ever satisfactorily rebutted my argument at that time. How would you answer that today?

J. answers:

What you're really talking about here is how the warming of the past century or so compares with natural variability. Climate models that are given constant forcing (e.g., constant solar flux) exhibit a century-scale variability of only a few tenths of a degree C, considerably less than the 0.6 deg. warming that has been observed. In addtion, temperature reconstructions using proxy climate data (e.g., Mann, Bradley, and Hughes) indicate that temperature increase of the 20th century is much greater than the variability over the period 1000-1900. (This study has stood up well to recent attacks, e.g., by McIntyre and McKitrick; I recommend the the discussion at Realclimate.org for more details.)

4.) In 1990 I was not aware of any good theories for the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Maximum. Are there explanations now?

J. answers:

I go back to the reconstructions mentioned in #3, which indicate that the amplitude of global mean temperatures on time scales of centuries was probably only a few tenths of a degree prior to 1900; this is considerably less than some early estimates that were based on much sparser data. So, statements that indicate that the global mean temperature in the middle ages was a degree or more than today's temperature would appear to be unfounded. It seems to me that the "Little Ice Age" is essentially a period in which the Earth was somewhat colder than today. It may be that part of the warming since then (e.g., in the early 20th century) was due to natural causes, but when all of the data and model results are taken together, the preponderance of evidence supports the thesis that most of the warming has been caused by the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gases. This is especially true of the last several decades; there has been a 45 ppm increase in CO2 concentrations since 1975 and an increase in global surface temperature of nearly half a degree Celsius during that time. (These are essentially the only climate-related variables that have shown a large increase over that time.)

Dreams, and The Laboon

How one of the Moken (the Sea Gypsies of Thailand) survived a year ago:

John then asks Salama of his own experiences nearly a year ago. Salama pauses, then describes a series of dreams he had before the Laboon, as the Moken call the tsunami. Three nights before he had his first dream, in which he saw the sea turn blood red and watched a western woman struggle in the waves. When he woke, he turned and prayed to the sea that it not be too harsh.

The second night the dream repeated, and when he told his wife she dismissed his premonition, saying he had too much to eat and drink.

The third night the dream happened again, and Salama was convinced nature was angry. The Moken legends tell that the sea sends in a Laboon every once in a great while to clean up what has become dirty, and Salama knew his village was not clean. He lamented that the young people had been leaving the island for the mainland allures, and returned with trash, which was littering the once pristine beach. He said he knew that morning that the sea was coming to wash his village.

He first noticed the fish in his bay were unusually roused, frisking out of the water as though in alarm. Then the sea took its big breath, and sucked the water away, and Salama knew the Laboon was coming.

He had 20 minutes to alert his people, and such was his respect and power that everyone listened. All raced to the highlands, and all but one Moken on the Andaman island of Surin survived.

Must....Blog.....

I gave up denial a long time ago, and I'm now in acceptance:

These specialists estimate that 6 percent to 10 percent of the approximately 189 million Internet users in this country have a dependency that can be as destructive as alcoholism and drug addiction, and they are rushing to treat it. Yet some in the field remain skeptical that heavy use of the Internet qualifies as a legitimate addiction, and one academic expert called it a fad
illness.

...But other users have a broader dependency and spend hours online each day, surfing the Web, trading stocks, instant messaging or blogging, and a fast-rising number are becoming addicted to Internet video games.

...On a list of 15 symptoms of Internet addiction used for diagnosis by Internet/Computer Addiction Services, Mike, who is unemployed and living with his mother, checked off 13, including intense cravings for the computer, lying about how much time he spends online, withdrawing from hobbies and social interactions, back pain and weight gain.

...And the prevalence of other technologies - like BlackBerry wireless e-mail devices, sometimes called CrackBerries because they are considered so addictive; the Treo cellphone-organizer ; and text messaging - has created a more generalized technology addiction, said Rick Zehr, the vice president of addiction and behavioral services at Proctor Hospital.

The hospital's treatment program places all its clients together for group therapy and other recovery work, whether the addiction is to cocaine or the computer, Mr. Zehr said.

"I can't imagine it's going to go away," he said of technology and Internet addiction. "I can only imagine it's going to continue to become more and more prevalent."

...Dr. Orzack said she got the idea after she discovered she had become addicted to computer solitaire, procrastinating and losing sleep and time with her family. When she started the clinic, she saw two patients a week at most. Now she sees dozens and receives five or six calls daily from those seeking treatment elsewhere in the country. More and more of those calls, she said, are coming from people concerned about family members addicted to Internet video games like EverQuest, Doom 3 and World of Warcraft.

Still, there is little hard science available on Internet addiction. "I think using the Internet in certain ways can be quite absorbing, but I don't know that it's any different from an addiction to playing the violin and bowling," said Sara Kiesler, professor of computer science and human-computer interaction at Carnegie Mellon University. ...In her view, she said, television addiction is worse.

Energizer Bunny of a Season

HURRICANE Epsilon! A rare December hurricane!

Epsilon strengthened into a record 14th hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean on Friday -- two days after the 2005 season officially ended. Forecasters said it posed no threat to land. Epsilon had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph at 10 a.m. EST, according to the National Hurricane Center in Miami. Its top sustained winds had been near 65 mph earlier in the day.

...Epsilon was only the fifth December hurricane recorded in more than 120 years, National Weather Service Hurricane Specialist Stacy Stewart said.

By December, upper-atmosphere winds are normally strong enough to keep storms in check, Stewart said, "but about every 20 years or so, the atmosphere allows it to happen."

The latest that a hurricane formed in the Caribbean was Dec. 30, which happened in 1954, he said.

...Forecasters say 2006 could be another brutal hurricane year because the Atlantic is in a period of frenzied activity that began in 1995 and could last at least another decade.

Gimme, Gimme, Gimme

Camille Paglia expresses with subtlety and detail what I experienced only as a vague discontent: Madonna doesn't quite succeed with her new dance album, "Confessions on a Dance Floor." Indeed, my first thought, before I knew it was Madonna singing but after hearing ABBA's 'Gimme, Gimme, Gimme' in the background, was that whoever was singing 'Hung Up' had to be a major star, in order to afford the astronomical cost of the rights to ABBA's song, but whom among the major stars would be foolish enough to kidnap this song? Can't Madonna afford original material?

I need to listen to the rest of Madonna's album, but I'm in no hurry.

Gimme, gimme, gimme Kylie Minogue!

Toxic?

(left: picture from That Nikon Fella on B3ta)

Andrea says Britney won't succeed Christina Applegate as "Sweet Charity" on Broadway. I wonder why? She is a great dancer, so-so singer, and terrible actress, but that hasn't stopped other celebrities from moving onto Broadway.

Ah, maybe it's just as well - Charity should convey vulnerability, but somehow I've never gotten that sense from Britney.

(for male game players and Britney fans, try out Britney's Naked Cat-a-Phone)

"Rent"

(left: Wilson Jermaine Heredia as 'Angel': more pictures at Yahoo!)

I went and saw "Rent" and was very pleased. I sat right up in front, just below the screen, so the film would overawe me. I spent most of the time with tears in my eyes (it had been a long time since I had heard the music from "Rent" and it hit me with full-force).

Since the movie adheres to standard movie musical convention, people who don't like the idea of actors breaking into song at the drop of a hat will have trouble with this film (I pity these people, though - haven't they ever seen and loved the innumerable movie musicals of the 1930's through 1950's?)

My main quibble was with Idina Menzel's performance-art protest: it is all about performance, and the protest part almost disappears altogether. Protest requires anger, after all, and Menzel couldn't seem to convey that emotion, or at least not to my satisfaction. You can hear the anger on the CD, but not see it on film, which may be because Menzel is performing as well as singing, and there's a lot she has to do. Menzel makes up for it later, with emotional intensity, in the chaotic wedding reception, though, so no hard feelings (that reception is apparently a latter-day add-on, and wasn't in the original stage version).

I loved the Baz-Luhrmann, Moulin-Rouge inspired fantasy tango sequence ('The Tango Maureen'), and indeed, I wondered if an old ballroom dance teacher from Tucson days, Rick Valenzuela, was there (Rick played the nasty, awkward third leg of the love triangle in the movie 'Dance With Me'), but none of the tango dancers were listed in the credits, and I suspect they might have been an uncredited specialty Argentine tango dance team, and Rick probably wasn't there at all.

Most considered criticism of the movie "Rent" focuses on the self-absorption of the characters. Ce'st la vie. That is a common characteristic of many creative communities, though, and why this one should be different, I don't know. Transitions between songs are sometimes a bit awkward, but that is the inevitable price of following standard movie musical convention (the transitions are certainly easier here than in a standard Astaire-Rogers musical).

I will write more later, but I will list minor observations:

• in the cemetery scenes, the prominent names on the headstones (e.g., Kline, Coleman) are prominent members of the crew (as listed in the credits);
• having grown up in NM, the Santa Fe, NM scenes made me smile. It's strange to hear that place just up the freeway described as a form of paradise. I'm sure there are people in Santa Fe who dream of New York.
• That 'Welcome to NM' sign isn't actually at the NM border, but rather close to Santa Fe (it just helps to story move along). The Santa Fe bus depot is not directly across the street from St. Francis Cathedral, the most important 19th-Century structure in the entire state (but putting it there helps move the story along). But the Palace of the Governors and Santa Fe Plaza were as big as life, and Adam Pascal fit in there with his guitar just fine.
• Wouldn't Jake Montoya make a fine 'Angel'?

DMTC's current problems with Varsity Theater 'Overtime Fee', and our strident protests against it, kept springing into mind with the overture, "Rent" (which crescendoes):

ALL
what binds the fabric together
when the raging, shifting winds of change
keep ripping away

BENNY
draw a line in the sand
and then make a stand

ROGER
use your camera to spar

MARK
use your guitar

ALL
when they act tough--you call their bluff

MARK & ROGER
we're not gonna pay

MARK & ROGER & 1/2 THE COMPANY
we're not gonna pay

MARK & ROGER & OTHER 1/2
we're not gonna pay

ALL
last year's rent
this year's rent
next year's rent
rent rent rent rent rent
we're not gonna pay rent

ROGER & MARK
'cause everything is rent

Here's a relevant quote from Chris Columbus about his desire to keep the original cast together as much as possible for the movie. Apparently Columbus wanted the experience of the original cast to work for the project, and I think it did. For example, having the characteristic voice of Mark (Anthony Rapp) somehow seems very important for tying everything together. It would be noticeably different with someone else in that role:

“There was a blip in Entertainment Weekly about me hiring some of the original cast members saying that they were too old," said Chris Columbus. "Well, they’re not too old. They still look like they’re in their ‘20s. Tom Collins, who’d be played by Jesse, could be older than the other cast members. It’s part of what Rent is. So I wrote them a letter which will be in the next Entertainment Weekly and it’s basically about the fact that these people created these characters and lived through Jonathan Larson’s death. And as a result, that show was a memorial to Jonathan for the 18 months that they were all in it together. And they’ve tried to recreate it with other cast members and sometimes they’re successful. They’ve taken it on the road. But it’s never had the emotional honesty or integrity that it did when those people were in it. So we looked at a lot of people and then I met individually with each one of these cast people. I needed to meet with the people I haven’t seen on screen. So Taye and Jesse, I haven’t met with but I see Jesse on Law and Order every week and I see Taye on his show so I know that they can still do the roles. But I’ve met with Idina Menzel and Adam Pascal. Daphne is seven months pregnant, so… We’re not going with Frenchie. I found someone new, a woman named Tracy Thoms, whose had a lot of experience, is a fantastic Joanne. Anyway, so these people have been through it and I wanted to capture that emotion on film, so I thought it would be great to get them all back together. I just felt that they bring something to it that you rarely get to see on screen, that experience. And I think it’s going to be interesting. If you have people too young, you have people that are 21 playing those roles on camera, on screen, I don't think you’d buy it. I think you have to believe that they’ve lived a little bit of a life. And anyway, they all look like they’re in their ‘20s and it’s going to be a remarkable movie just because of the sheer power.”

Columbus is right, experience does count for something!

Uh-Oh

My work has involved a lot of Calpine stuff, since 1998. So, this worries me:

Calpine, which made millions of dollars during the energy crisis and has lost millions ever since, announced the departure of Chairman and Chief Executive Peter Cartwright and Chief Financial Officer Robert Kelly. A "merchant" generator that sells its electricity to retail utility companies, Calpine said the shake-up will allow it "to better address Calpine's financial challenges and to provide a new direction for the company."

Time to pray to the Utility Gods for help, the ones who actually run your toaster and set your alarm clock off in the morning.

The Worst Song?

The competition for this honor is incredibly stiff, and I'm sure we all have our own opinion, but readers of Australian Musician have made up their minds:

AUSTRALIA'S musicians know a good song from a bad one and have voted the annoying Crazy Frog ringtone Axel F as the Worst Song Of All Time.

The inescapable novelty tune finally deposed the line-dancing soundtrack Achy Breaky Heart and the plain bad Macarena from the top spots in the Australian Musician magazine readers' poll.

51 Years Ago, Today

This story still amazes me. There was a Time-Life book about Space in the house next-door when I was a kid. When I visited the kids next door, I'd sneak off and read it. The book featured a picture of this woman in her hospital bed, showing off the incredible, painful bruise that covered her hip. The meteorite punched a big hole right through the roof, and into her kitchen. Think of the odds! Just amazing! Chicken Little was right - the sky really is falling! (from the Daily Rotten):

Nov 30 1954

At 1 pm, an 8.5 pound stone meteorite falls from the sky and strikes Elizabeth Hulitt Hodge from Sylacauga, Alabama. The housewife was seriously bruised but survived, although the meteorite destroyed her radio.

Got Anti-Venin?

Now, this is bad for foreign relations, of course, but it also strikes me as just plain dumb. North Queensland's Outback has plenty of critters with a mean, homicidal streak, starting with insects and snakes. Running around out there in the boonies with your privates exposed just seems - well - unusually ill-advised, even granting that it was July, the coolest month in Australia:

NAKED army officers posed for photographs wearing head dress and brandishing firearms in the latest shameful episode to rock the defence forces.

The Daily Telegraph can reveal the tasteless prank - which included male officers from Randwick Army Barracks in Sydney - is now the subject of an Defence Department investigation.

The episode occurred during a joint training exercise between Australian and US troops in July. The huge joint exercise, dubbed Talisman Sabre, was a mock training run between the Australian armed forces and their US allies. But for a group of soldiers seconded to the Shoalwater Military Base near Rockhampton, it became an opportunity to ridicule Arab men in front of the cameras.

...RSL bosses were appalled by the pictures, which depicted officers wearing head dress associated with men in Middle Eastern countries.

The case is similar to the Ku Klux Klan scandal revealed in November last year when soldiers at Townsville's Lavarack Barracks wore KKK-style hoods to intimidate black comrades.

Baby Solar System

Forming now!:

Astronomers have discovered what they believe is the birth of the smallest known solar system. Peering through ground- and space-based telescopes, scientists observed a brown dwarf — or failed star — less than one hundredth the mass of the sun surrounded by what appears to be a disk of dust and gas.

Tropical Storm Epsilon

It's like one of those 1950's space dramas, where the intrepid space explorers keep getting battered by asteroids, or something:

The Atlantic hurricane season ends Wednesday, but Tropical Storm Epsilon could still cause dangerous surf conditions in Bermuda, forecasters said.

Epsilon, the 26th named storm of the busiest hurricane season on record, formed Tuesday in the central Atlantic. It was not expected to hit Bermuda or any other land, according to forecasters at the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

Blog Spammer Meditation

Nice thoughts for the Christmas season (or any season, really). Click on the link to discover what the writer feels should be done with the advertised products:

Consider: how much actual business do you draw with you spamming? Has anybody EVER been moved to spend large amounts of money on crap that sought them out on the internet? DO you create more goodwill for your product than you do contempt or wall punching fury?

Can't Please Everyone

A clerk I know said she went to see "Rent," but walked out of the movie. I was aghast. "Really? Why?"; I asked.

She said, "I mean, I liked the concept of "Rent", but there's one thing I can't stand in movies, and that's when people start singing!"

Ah yes, that would be a problem, wouldn't it?

Gruel - Yummy!

Gruel gets a bad rap, but, like just about any food, some imagination helps:

Gruel was served to orphans as an economic necessity. You certainly couldn't feed hundreds of children steak and eggs on city funds. Unfortunatly, Dickens and his ilk often used gruel as a metephor for cruelty. The thin porridge has had a bad reputation ever since.

Gruel can actually be quite tasty. As far back as Medieval times, they were making sweet variations. A dish called Gruya (or Gruyau) was basically gruel -- barley boiled in almond milk. In Korea today, gruel is often considered a delicacy. Take for instance Jat-juk, or Pine Nut Gruel -- finely ground rice swimming with pine nuts to make a nutrious (protein, iron and vitamin B) and delicious soup.

Invasion of The Body-Snatchers

Stories from the trade:

And everything—every little part—has a price tag. According to 2004 estimates, heart valves were fetching upwards of $5,000, and skin was being stripped off at about $1,000 per square foot. Whole corpses can go for anywhere between $1,000 and $10,000, depending on the condition of the body and who's doing the buying.

Human life may be pretty cheap, but on the open market the average body could be worth about $150,000, should you strip it for parts, and sell each individually, the way a chop shop might do with a stolen Toyota.

Mall Nostalgia

You just knew it was going to happen eventually. We all grow attached to the things and places of our youth. And not just any mall - Albuquerque's Coronado Mall!

I remember Coronado Mall. I remember the pall of Albuquerque winter wood smoke entering the mall, masking the perfume scents and Cinnabon aroma. We were fashion gods in Albuquerque: everyone wore blue jeans. I fondly remember the big set of escalators, and shopping for Christmas presents, and waiting for 'Jay' to punch out from his job of harrassing Sear's deadbeat credit-card customers. That's where I bought a set of kitchen knives, thinking it romantic (apparently it's not).

Nostalgia!

Feats Of Strength

This is deliberate, and I would think, potentially harmful. Careless shaking alone is enough to cause me occasional injury.

Inspiration For Musicals

Everywhere you look, there you are:

The high-tech babymaking that he and his wife, Amy, were enduring—the sperm specimens, the hormone shots, the egg harvesting—wasn't only agonizing, it was pretty darn funny. So when Amy finally got pregnant, Chris started crafting little ditties. Nine months later, Amy delivered twins, Garrick and Olivia, and Chris, a writer and composer, delivered a script: "Infertility: The Musical That's Hard to Conceive."

Particulate Matter, and Health

Wasn't it Gwen Verdon, the fabulous Broadway dancer, who suffered mightily, by inhaling a feather? Ah, the perils of particulate matter in the air! From The Onion:

The Occupational Safety And Health Administration released figures Monday indicating that record numbers of elementary-school art teachers are falling victim to pneumosparklyosis, commonly known as glitter lung.

...Characterized by a lack of creative energy and shortness of breath, and accompanied by sneezing or coughing up flakes of twinkly, reflective matter, glitter lung typically strikes teachers between the ages of 29 to 60 who spend 20 hours per week in an art-class setting during the school year.

"When art teachers spend so much time in confined quarters with inadequate ventilation amid swirling clouds of glitter, it's only a matter of time before their lungs start to suffer negative effects," said Dr. Linda Norr, a specialist in elementary-school-related respiratory diseases. "Those sufferers who are not put on a rigorous program of treatment often spend their last days on respirators, hacking up a thick, dazzling mucus."

...Until heavier, less toxic forms of glitter are developed, physicians recommend using alternative media to enhance children's artwork.

"Cheerios, cotton balls, and popsicle sticks are considered very safe," Norr said. "Avoid colored string, however, because some studies show that it could be high in yarncinogens. And if glitter is absolutely essential to the craft project, try using a glitter pen, as the particles are less likely to become airborne."

Glitter guidelines established by OSHA in 1970 allow for no more than 0.4 flakes per cm3 of the substance in the air. Yet critics say the standards were developed to protect children, who typically only spend two to three hours in art class per week, unlike teachers, who spend as many as 40 hours per week in the toxic, high-glitter environment.

...The medical community has been slow to recognize glitter lung as a public health threat. A 1993 epidemic of sequin fibrosis, which primarily affected dancers in the Las Vegas, NV area, was seen as an isolated case. Now, however, the disease is being re-evaluated, and many doctors believe it may be the most serious occupational health hazard to hit educators since the outbreak of gold-star syndrome in the 1960s.

Epidemiologists note that the increase in glitter-lung cases is occurring simultaneously with a general rise in other classroom-related diseases. Macaroni elbow, modeling clay palsy, crayon flu, and googly-eye are sidelining thousands of teachers each year.

But despite growing medical alarm, efforts to provide adequate safety measures and health care continue to be hampered by bureaucratic red, blue, green, and yellow tape.

Can The Jews Save Christmas?

Meaning this year's Christmas holiday shopping season, since Hanukkah doesn't start until December 25th this year. Reasons for skepticism:

Every year, forecasters debate the possible impact of Hanukkah's timing on Christmas sales. But I'm skeptical it will make much of a difference this year. In New York and other regional markets with large Jewish populations, the fact that Hanukkah falls late on the Christian calendar this year could affect the pace and timing of shopping. But given the numbers, Jews would have to perform superhuman feats of consumption—out of all proportion to their population, number of children, and income—to have anything but the most marginal impact on nationwide sales. Over the centuries, anti-Semites (and less frequently, philo-Semites) have endowed Jews with the ability to perform mystical feats. Saving the Christmas holiday shopping season isn't one of them.

The Coming Withdrawal

After having his goons denounce John Murtha as a near-traitor for advocating a withdrawal from Iraq, President Bush prepares to announce - a withdrawal from Iraq.

And so it appears (assuming the forecasts about the speech are true) that the White House is as cynical about this war as its cynical critics have charged it with being. For several months now, many of these critics have predicted that, once the Iraqis passed their constitution and elected a new government, President Bush would declare his mission complete and begin to pull out—this, despite his public pledge to "stay the course" until the insurgents were defeated.

The worst President - ever.

Tsunami Stories

A year has passed since the great south-Asian Christmas tsunami, and the New York Times Magazine has published stories from some of the survivors in Banda Aceh, Sumatra, Indonesia, one of the hardest-hit places (since 9/11, the New York Times has made almost a specialty of the tales of disaster survivors).

Scary stuff! What do you do when your world is abruptly destroyed by titanic waves? Who lives, and who dies? I was impressed with the guy who, when he heard a big wave was coming, thought he was OK because his house was on 6-ft-tall stilts. He had no idea!

Asian Dust

It's quite impressive what some of those Asian dust storms can do, stripping dust from the loess plateaus of the Takla Makan, and other desert areas of China and Mongolia, and transporting it across eastern China, and from there, across the Pacific. The April, 1998 Asian storms caused PM10 concentrations to rise as high as 100 ug/m3 in British Columbia, with much of that being Asian dust: that's impressive! That's enough to affect the breathing of sensitive folks.

In New Mexico, sometimes we saw some impressive dust storms. I remember a big storm in April, 1974. Driving from Socorro to Carlsbad for Easter holiday on that murky day was pretty disorienting - surrounded by mountains, yet not a single one was in sight. Nevertheless, New Mexico storms don't amount to much compared to these Asian spectacles!

The Cat In The Hat

I've got a cold at the moment, the first in a long time. Last night, I was looking for something like a sleep stocking for my head, and settled on a multi-colored 'Cat In The Hat'-style of hat. That's the nice thing about doing theater: just happening to have such things laying around the house from which to choose.

Which reminds me, "Suessical" is starting soon at the Woodland Opera House.

Will It Never End?

Tropical Storm Delta menaces the Canary Islands.

More on Melody Davi

Folsom newspaper article
San Bernardino review
Underwhelmed reviewer (review already posted on this weblog: 10/16/05 archive), but also including comments by readers who are underwhelmed by the reviewer

Asteroid Touchdown

This is so cool, but I hadn't heard anything about it until now:

During its descent, Hayabusa captured images of its shadow looming over the marker (circled) that it dropped onto the surface of asteroid Itokawa (Image: JAXA/ISAS)

Michael Newdow's Atheist Musical/Lecture

Well, the Sacramento Bee's reviewer was less-than-impressed. It's harder to do musicals than you might think, particularly if a lecture is sandwiched in-between. Yet, I'm curious about the dinosaur dance - there's a lot of potential in dinosaurs. Imagine, a velociraptor chorus line!:

His singing was so-so, his lyrics inane, his rapping just plain ridiculous, his stage presence saved only by a brightly colored shirt. He rushed his lecture. And his lecture, essentially about the history of civilization, was way too long by biblical proportions.

As a performer, Newdow committed his first sin by showing up late to the theater at Sheldon High School. Sure he's a busy guy, but a one-man show can't go on when that one man is stuck in traffic.

...Yet, true talents can win back a disgruntled audience with energy and enthusiasm. Newdow took it in another direction. In his first number, a song about equality, the recorded music drowned out his singing voice, prompting one helpful heckler to shout: "We can't hear you. The music's too loud."

...Outside it was a different story.

"What is he? A lawyer, a doctor, an atheist and now he's a singer?" said protester James Musgrave. "What is he going to do next, remodel bathrooms?"

Indeed, grout work might have been more entertaining, given Newdow's second song, about dinosaurs. Newdow and four students did a dinosaur song-and-dance. Only a man who paid $1,700 to rent the theater could get away with such a thing.

...It said something about his speaking skills when this listener wondered when the next song would begin. It eventually did.

Which leads to the big question many believers and nonbelievers might pose after seeing this one-man disaster: If there really is a merciful God, how could he have stood by and allowed this to happen?

Into The Woo?

She's A Star! "42nd Street" Comes to Stockton, With Melody Davi

Tony and Kathy Davi issued the invitation months ago: their daughter, Melody, touring with Big League Theatrical's revival version of the quintessential tap-dance musical, "42nd Street," would come as close to Sacramento as Stockton in its national tour. Would I like to come see her perform? Absolutely! Melody has always been among the strongest performers I had ever seen, and she was only getting better as she got stage experience. I eagerly looked forward to November 22nd, the date of the performance.

Melody succeeded her sister Mara as the lead actress and dancer, Peggy Sawyer, in the national and international tour of "42nd Street." It's quite unusual that sisters succeed each other as the lead, but then, great musical talent sometimes flows in families (veteran Mara is instead doing 'White Christmas' in Boston this year).

The venue was the Bob Hope Theatre in downtown Stockton. I got lost trying to locate the theater, so I stopped at a pizza joint for directions. The fellow behind the counter said the theater was only a few blocks away and that I couldn't miss it because it was all "litted" up (I like that word, "litted.")

The theater was very pretty: awash in neon outside, and very art deco inside, and, Tuesday evening, it was packed with an excited audience. The big problem for the show, however, was that the stage was quite small. According to Kathy, the stage was about the smallest of the entire national tour, so the cast would be doing its "C" version of the show - and a very cramped version of its "C" show too: many flys would be absent, and there would be no awesome dancing on steps at the end. (After the show, Tony remarked on how many changes to the ensemble dancing had been made, apparently with no noticeable problems, in order to adjust to the small space: a mark of true professionalism on the part of the cast.)

None of this really mattered to me, though. I was there to see Melody perform, whatever the drawbacks might be. In the lobby, I loaded up on the "42nd Street" CD, and the T-Shirt, and the souvenir program (I turn into an uber-consumer at emotional times like this). Sacramento musical theater folks were there: Andee Thorpe, Brian McCann, a number of RSP folks. A big contingent of Melody's friends and relatives from the Folsom area were there too.

What a glorious, glorious show! Strong, strong dancers and performers, with Melody leading the way! The first, big attention-grabber, for me, was the endurance tap sequence in Act I, Scene 2 ('Go Into Your Dance'). Very hard to do, but Melody and fellow dancers made it seem so - effortless! Just one of many, grueling, apparently effortless dance numbers ('With Plenty of Money, and You,' 'Montage,' etc.) Then, there were all the classic songs ('I Only Have Eyes For You,' 'We're In The Money,' 'Lullaby of Broadway,' 'Shuffle Off To Buffalo,' and, of course, '42nd Street.') Throughout the entire second act, tears filled my eyes, it was so beautiful.

Afterwards, a scrum of friends, fans, and relatives waited out back, where the trucks were being loaded and where the buses were idling, waiting to take the cast and crew to tomorrow's show in Bakersfield. Everyone wanted pictures and autographs, and to say hello. The avalanche of well-wishers and memories must have been a distracting, emotional experience for Melody.

I greeted Melody, gave her a bouquet, kissed her on the cheek, took a photo of her, and kissed her again on the cheek. I told her I missed her, and she reciprocated by saying likewise.

It wasn't until ten minutes later, however, when I was moving around on the periphery of the group, that Melody really saw and recognized me. Then I kissed her on the cheek again, took another photo of her, kissed her on the cheek again, etc.

How odd! It was like some kind of wacky science experiment. What can possibly push Melody Davi's facile brain into the "Red Zone?" Is it:

Q.) hours of white-hot tap-dancing with world-class professionals, on stage, in front of many hundreds of people?

A.) No. Not even close.

Or is it, instead:

Q.) dozens of life-long friends, relatives and admirers, armed with flashing cameras and clamoring for attention all at once in the dark AFTER hours of white-hot tap-dancing with world-class professionals on stage, in front of many hundreds of people?

A.) Yes, at least until the clamor dies down a bit.

Melody really IS a star these days, and Stockton saw the proof, last night! Try to coordinate your travel schedule with the national tour if you can: you will be amazed! Melody has posted the tour schedule at her Web Site.


Ray Fisher and Melody Davi.

Cool Border-Crossing Gear

I saw this the other day in the Bee, and I thought "hmmmm.... I should get a pair!":

These are no ordinary shoes.

A compass and flashlight dangle from one shoelace. The pocket in the tongue is for money or pain relievers. A rough map of the border region is printed on a removable insole.

They are red, white and green, the colors of the Mexican flag. On the back ankle, a drawing of Mexico's patron saint of migrants.

Neither A Lender Or Borrower Be

This sort of squabble creeps me out, mostly because Calpine has indirectly paid a substantial chunk of my salary over the years, and I don't want that gravy train to end soon. But then, why should I give Calpine any advice? I'm seriously leveraged myself, and I know I try to avoid paying that 'speculative premium' whenever possible!

Calpine used $139 million in sale proceeds to buy back some of its top-priority debt at face value of the notes, but other bondholders refused to sell at that price. Calpine, which claims some bondholders want a "speculative premium," then withdrew more than $300 million from the account to buy natural gas in storage, a move that angered some bondholders.

Can't Resist

Just a couple of pictures from "Victor/Victoria": Lauren Miller with Chris Scarberry and Marcy Goodnow.

Forbidden Thought

Are the torments of junior high school that close to my daily consciousness? How much of a mark did bullies leave, way back then?

I saw this headline:

Three-fourths of state kids not physically fit, test shows

and the first thought in my head was "at last, someone I can kick around and get away with it."

For my thought-crime, I'll do a hundred push-ups, in penance (it'll just make me more formidable, anyway, when I bust people up at recess for lunch money).

Bob Woodward, Pathetic Hack Reporter

He ruined his reputation - the best reputation in all of journalism! - all for 'access'. How sad!

Stryker

Vents.

Life Imitating Art, Imitating Life - "The Thin Blue Line"

Another interesting example of how the existence of the ultimate remedy - the death penalty - makes errors in sentencing more likely, not less: the very story line of that excellent movie from 1988, "The Thin Blue Line." Here's what the jury forewoman in Texas thinks now, AFTER THE EXECUTION:

"We did the best we could with the information we had, but with a little extra work, a little extra effort, maybe we'd have gotten the right information," said Miriam Ward, forewoman of the jury that convicted Cantu. "The bottom line is, an innocent person was put to death for it. We all have our finger in that."

Gotta Smoke

Sleepwalking, they say:

A WOMAN passenger tried to open the emergency door of a plane at 39,000ft so she could step outside for a cigarette.

Fellow passengers on the Cathay Pacific flight from Hong Kong to Brisbane were alarmed to see French tourist Sadrine Helene Sellies, 34, get up from her seat, holding a cigarette and a lighter, and grab the emergency door handle, Brisbane Magistrates Court was told yesterday.

A Year

A year (sigh....) What is a year?

What is that song from "Rent", 'Seasons of Love'? (lyrics from Let's Sing It:

Five hundrend twenty five thousand
six hundred minutes
Five hundrend twenty five thousand
moments so dear
Five hundrend twenty five thousand
six hundred minutes
How do you measure, measure a year

In daylight, in sunsets, in midnights,
in cups of coffee, In inches, in miles
in laughter in strife,

In Five hundrend twenty five thousand
six hundred minutes
How do you measure a year in the life

(chorus)
How about Love
how about love
how about love
measure in love
seasons of love
seasons of love

Well, I'm reminded by Frontier Touring Company's latest announcement:

Kylie's Australian tour promoter The Frontier Touring Company announced on Sunday evening that they are holding dates at the end of 2006 for the rescheduling of the Australian leg of Kylie's Showgirl: The Greatest Hits Tour.

The announcement coincided with TEN's airing of highlights from Kylie's Earls Court Showgirl concert. The special was aired at Kylie's request as a preview for the tens of thousands of fans still holding tickets to her Australian tour.

Promoter Michael Gudinski said Kylie's thoughts were still with her Australian fans.

"Kylie's touched that so many of her fans are waiting so patiently for the rescheduling of her Showgirl tour.

"She wanted fans to have a small taste of the concert that she will bring them in the future."

Michael Gudinski confirmed that The Frontier Touring Company are holding dates with venues for the end of 2006 and that the company hoped to make an announcement of exact dates in the New Year.

"Our aim is to give Kylie the time she needs to recover fully. We appreciate that the end of next year is a long time away for ticket holders and the option of refunding tickets will remain available to fans."

In some very exciting news The Frontier Touring Company also announced that Kylie has decided the 2006 version of Showgirl will be varied and updated from the original version seen overseas in 2005 as a thank you for the patience and understanding of Australian ticket holders.

"Fans that hold onto their tickets will be part of a tour that they won't ever forget. Kylie's been thinking about these shows a lot over the past months, and they're going to be something special," Michael Gudinski said.

"Charlotte's Web" - DMTC's YPT


Bows Sunday evening at "Charlotte's Web." Foreground, Nora Unkel (Charlotte) and Ed Bianchi (Wilbur). Between them, in the polka dot dress, is Camille Totah (Fern Arable). Immediately to the right of Wilbur is Chris Danti (Templeton), Cass Olson and Lisa Parente (Goose and Gander).

Nice show! I liked the costumes, particularly Nora's many arms (not easily visible here) which underline and emphasize gestures: spiders may thus have an advantage over humans as stage actors. The baby spiders were cute as well. Ed Bianchi was lovable as Wilbur. Camille Totah was excellent, as always.

I got confused regarding what distinguishes the Arables and the Zuckermans from each other: it's been a long, long time since I've read the book.

This is the first time I've seen Chris Danti perform. Something about his performance reminded me of something, and it took awhile to figure out what it was: he reminds me, a little bit, of Marlon Brando. Picture Brando as a lovable but opportunistic rat, constantly looking for food, and that's something like Danti's performance.

"She Loves Me" - Woodland Opera House


Andrea St. Clair (who plays Ilona Ritter in 'She Loves Me'). Clever, unexpected lyrics in her songs (e.g., "I must stop thinking with my skin: I will not be a mandolin"). I've never even thought about thinking with my skin before (...this is your brain ...this is your brain on hand lotion)

Went up to the Woodland Opera House last night to see "She Loves Me." Met people I half-expected to see (J.P. Villa, light board operator; Meg and Tom Stallard, longtime WOH supporters; actors Matt and Chris Taloff), but also people I did not expect to see (Peter William Wagner, Davis bicycle maker and fellow player in WOH's 1997 "Fiddler..."; Jason McDowell and Kelly Daniells, and her parents), and also failed to meet others in the cast I wanted to say hello to (isn't that how it always seems to go in the chaotic post-show rush?)

Nice production. Fine set and costumes. I found the show itself to be a bit puzzling, which made me wish I understood its genesis better. For example, the characters have Hungarian names, which suggests an urban, ethnic origin (think, say, Chicago), but then locating the show in a high-class parfumerie, catering to the well-to-do, just opens more questions, like, did I miss a Jewish subcurrent that was supposed to be there (these aren't Catholics, are they?). My head is full of wool - I had trouble following several patter-type songs (particularly 'A Trip to The Library')- so I know I was missing valuable clues to helping my understanding. I guess I should investigate the show and the lyrics further, or even see the show again, tonight or tomorrow.

According to Wikipedia, the origin is European - Budapest - not American at all, which begins to make more sense. But then, why don't we have more central European musicals in the Anglo-American musical theater repertoire? I also found it strange that Ilona Ritter's love interest, the optometrist, never even arrives on stage, when Mr. Kodaly is already available and apparently underemployed: kind of a 'Waiting for Guffman' quality there.

Nevertheless, it was fun to see everyone perform. I had tended to forget just how well Beth Monet Nilsen is as an actress and a singer: just fabulous! Andrea St. Clair and Tony Ruiz also put in excellent performances, but I felt they needed to be used even more (bring on that optometrist!) Tony is a wonderful singer, and I love watching Andrea perform and sing: she has a lapidary quality that I like: precise, swift-flowing movements; an economy of movement and expression.

Most of the men I hadn't seen perform before. Don Draughon was a fine singer. Jeff Nauer, who played Ladislav Lipos, was excellent throughout. Bob Cooner, the fellow who played Georg Nowack, is a real find - a superb performer and singer (he did 'She Loves Me' justice). The only problem he had is that, early on in the show, he is supposed to be something of a martinet, but that didn't quite come across. He's a very amiable fellow, and early-on martinet-ness was sacrificed for later-on amiability. Which is fine with me!

Someone, nearby in the audience, was wearing perfume, and that olfactory sensation added to the parfumery ambience. Scents are underemployed in the theater, in general. Perhaps the air-conditioning systems of theaters can be rigged to suit: pine-scents for forests, a parfumery for this show, etc. Wait: ("Guys and Dolls" 'Luck Be A Lady' - ah, maybe that's a bad idea after all....)

Choice Sophie

My bad: I misspoke when I said Kelly Daniells would arrive in town NEXT weekend! Here she is, with family and Jason, at the Woodland Opera House last night.

Serotonin

Researchers at Yolo County's leading institution for applied neurochemical research (aka, the Capay Valley Institute for Osmotic Analysis; aka the Cache Creek Casino & Resort) believe they have unlocked the key to understanding human motivation, impulse and desire. Synaptic electrochemical potentials appear to be most implicated. Film at 11.

Survival Of The Thinnest Possible Rationale

The evolution of creationism, under selection pressures generated by the Supreme Court.

A Triumph For Kelly Daniells!

Talented, long-time Sacramento community-theater performer Kelly Daniells hits the big time (and by age 20 no less!) It's hard to overemphasize the impact such a high-visibility role will have on her career. A thousand congratulations to her!

Kelly will play 'Sophie' (the lead) in "Mamma Mia," at the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino in Las Vegas (rehearsals begin in January, and she assumes the role in February).

Kelly's first musical theater experience was as 'Fatima, The Dancing Doll,' in DMTC's Young Performer's Theater production of "Aladdin," in April-May 1994.

My understanding is that Kelly will be in the Sacramento area next weekend, and she's supposed to come out and see the New Theater.

We'll all have to make a trek to Mandalay Bay early next year! That's one strange (but interesting) place!

Sprung Floor


The anti-crack crusaders: Robert Coverdell, Steve Isaacson, Ryan Favorite, *fellow in a green shirt*, and Molly Olson.

Last night, installation of the sprung floor commenced at the New Theater. A sprung floor yields better to impacts than a conventional floor, gives a little return spring, and thus is easier on dancers' knees, ankles, etc. Last night, installation was getting bogged down due to alignment problems - the plates have to fit almost-seamlessly together, and there were seams. Since "Into The Woods" performs tonight, these issues have to be resolved today.

It's time we had a better floor for dance rehearsals. If we had such a thing in the past, a few problems could have been mitigated: that time, for example, when Kyle Hadley hit his head on the concrete floor ("Tommy," 2001), or when Dian mashed her toe during recent "Cabaret" rehearsals.

I remember when I was nearly rendered a vegetable during the first "Grease" rehearsal, in 2003. David "Turtle" Akona and I stood back-to-back, and we interlocked arms. Turtle then tried to flip me over his back, but I didn't tuck properly, and so then we were stuck, me on his back, both our heads pointing downwards to the concrete floor, with Turtle staggering around under the weight, trying to regain his balance. That was close!

Speaking of Kyle Hadley, Jan recently gave him a tour of the New Theater. I was cleaning bathrooms, but I'm not sure what it looked like to Kyle. When he first saw me, I was coming out of the backstage women's restroom. Then, when Jan showed him the main women's restroom, she opened the door, and bingo!, there I was, apparently just idling. I think Kyle thought this - strange.

Policeman Down

Uh, oh - west of Woodland. I wonder if this is collateral damage from the impulsive casino crowd heading into the hills, or if it's something else altogether.

A California Highway Patrol officer was fatally shot Thursday during what is believed to have been a traffic stop west of Woodland at about 2:30 p.m. on County Road 96 near State Route 16, CHP officials said.

... John Christy of the Yolo sheriff's Department said there were several witnesses to the crime, and that hundreds of officers from several agencies have fanned out in the area in search of what is believed to be a single suspect.

Reviews of DMTC's "Into The Woods"

For the first time in two-and-a-half years, the Sacramento Bee (Jim Carnes) came out to review "Into The Woods" (wish we could open a new theater every month, just to catch the Bee's attention!)

In addition, The Davis Enterprise (Bev Sykes) also reviewed the show.

Here are those reviews....
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The Sacramento Bee


Review: 'Woods' needs work, but off to a good start
By Jim Carnes -- Bee Staff Writer

Construction isn't complete - walls haven't been painted, the wood has no finish, the floor is bare concrete, and the water fountain isn't in place - but the Davis Musical Theatre Company couldn't wait any longer and, on Friday night, opened its Hoblit Performing Arts Center with the dark and challenging James Lapine-Stephen Sondheim collaboration, "Into the Woods."

Truth be told, it seemed - a lot like the building itself - still a work in progress, but one with potential. The orchestra, playing in a real sunken pit beneath the stage, sometimes overpowered the frailer voices onstage. A couple of false starts and sour notes by singers didn't help, but, gosh, some of those Sondheim lyrics are complicated and not that easy to sing. The acting was generally very good, though, and the costumes (by Jeannie Henderson) were fairy-tale perfect in looks.

The theater has a contemporary, industrial look. Its 240 seats rise in rows that start at stage level. A metal and wire railing frames the staircase down to the orchestra pit and separates the audience from the stage. It takes a little getting used to. When the action is down front, you look through the railing at the actors' lower extremities. High above the audience hangs the lighting, and exposed ducts carry the heating and air conditioning. During Friday's opening performance, it seemed a little loud when it kicked on.

"Into the Woods" is an intriguing musical that does for fairy tales what others - Anne Sexton in poetry, Della Davidson in dance, among them - have done, and that is interpret them for adults, exploring their cautionary nature through their gruesome, scary, ambiguous elements. These are Grimm fairy tales at their grimmest.

Whereas fairy tales, being for children, end with "happily ever after," these tales - of Cinderella (Rosie Babich) and her prince (Bob Olson); Little Red Riding Hood (Jocelyn Price) and the wolf (Olson again); Rapunzel (Jessica Hammon) and her prince (Ryan Favorite); Jack, of the beanstalk fame (Steven Ross); and a childless baker (Ryan Adame) and his wife (Kristen Wagner) - hit "happily" before intermission. "Ever after" is another matter entirely.

With the help of a narrator (Steve Isaacson, who also portrays the Mysterious Man), "Into the Woods" intertwines all these stories. A witch (Marguerite Morris) who has cursed the baker and his wife with infertility because his father had stolen from her garden years earlier, offers the pair a chance at parenthood - if they can complete a scavenger hunt for items that will remove a curse she is under. They must bring her a cow as white as snow, a cape as red as blood, hair as yellow as corn and a slipper pure as gold.

The pair gathers the items and everyone's wish is granted at the conclusion of Act 1. In Act 2, the admonition of "be careful what you wish for" really comes into play. Sondheim's songs are quite specific to character and plot (which may explain why there are no breakout "hits" from this play), but they are intelligent and often ironic and funny.

This production's best singers, Olson and Favorite, also have one of the best songs, "Agony." "It Takes Two" features a nice duet between Wagner and Adame, who is the most engaging actor among the cast. "No One Is Alone," sung by Babich, Price, Adame and Ross is lovely, as is most of the ensemble work.

About the writer:
The Bee's Jim Carnes can be reached at (916) 321-1130 or jcarnes@sacbee.com
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The Davis Enterprise

'Woods' enchants in its new theater
By Bev Sykes

Enterprise drama critic
Published: November 15, 2005

The smell of fresh paint hovered throughout the building, and places still needed to be painted, stained or carpeted. The curtains had been hung just the night before, and the wrinkles still were falling out of the grand drape. The acoustic designer won't get to work until everything is in place ... but the show must go on, and go on it did.

The Davis Musical Theatre Company selected "Into the Woods" to open its new theater at 607 Pena Drive. Steven Sondheim shows aren't necessarily easy under the best of circumstances, and I fully expected lots of glitches during this particular opening night performance.

I was pleasantly surprised. If glitches occurred, other than a couple of faulty light cues, I was unaware of them. The set, designed by Woodrow & IvyMoss — with its stark, spiky trees for the forest and the traditional wagon sets for Cinderella's home (later the palace); the home of Jack (of Beanstalk fame); and the bakery, where the baker and his wife long for a child — are perfect for the Hoblit stage. And the scene changes from houses to forest are great!

The DMTC orchestra, under the direction of Erik Daniells, now has its own pit; the difference is amazing. I've never heard the music sound better.

Some adjustments will need to be made, as performers learn how to project out over an orchestra, rather than one that was backstage on a platform, as it was for years. Some of the actors handle this change better than others, but most could use a bit more oomph in their delivery.

That said, this is a good production.

Act I weaves together the stories of many familiar tales from our childhood. Cinderella (Rosie Babich) sits at home with her stepmother (Monique McKisson) and two stepsisters (Dannette Vassar and Stacia Truesdale), longing to attend the Prince's ball. Next door, Jack (Steven Ross) and his mother (Jannette Kragen) argue over selling Jack's beloved cow, Milky White (playing herself).

The Baker (Ryan Adame) and his wife (Kristen Wagner) are disappointed that they have not yet conceived a child. Little Red (Jocelyn Price) appears, on her way with goodies for Granny (Melissa Tolley).

DMTC has a solid cast with few weak performers. Those who rise above the rest are Price, whose Little Red is energetic and cute as a button. Babich gives an outstanding performance as Cinderella, as do Adame and Wagner, as the Baker and his wife.

Morris gives her usual first-rate performance. She's at her best while singing, although she needs to project more with her spoken lines.

Melissa Tolley is the offstage voice of the wife of the giant that Jack killed. Sadly, this voice required amplification; it should have sounded more scary.

In Act II we discover that there really is no "happily ever after." Many characters meet horrible ends ... although, for the purposes of this production, they all die gloriously.

Director Jan Isaacson beamed in the lobby after the show ended, saying, "I just can't believe we're finally here." After all this time, she must feel like she's living her own fairy tale.

I fondly hope that DMTC finally has found its "happily ever after": one that can be enjoyed for years to come.

Call 756-3682 for show information.
Copyright, 2005, The Davis Enterprise. All Rights Reserved.

Dave Lack's Blog

I shouldn't fail to mention Dave Lack's blog over on MySpace. He has a slide show of "Victor/Victoria" pictures that looks really interesting (I'm most evident on slides 1 and 14). Somehow, when you're up there on stage, in the rush of activity, you tend to forget that what really counts is how the audience sees it, and it's fun to see their view!

Vengeance

The Dutch take their sports too seriously:

A sparrow knocked over 23,000 dominoes in the Netherlands, nearly ruining a world record attempt before it was shot to death Monday, the state news agency reported.

Cloud Nine

Watch that fog!

A teenager driving a stolen car died early yesterday after he jumped into a dense fog from a Rancho Bernardo freeway bridge in an attempt to flee from police. He fell more than 10 stories.

A passenger who jumped with him was critically injured, Escondido police Lt. David Mankin said.

The fog was so heavy on the bridge that the two likely didn't know the danger that jumping posed, said Mankin, who looked over the side of the freeway a short time later.

Is That You, Ted?

On Wednesday, October 5th, there was a special Board of Director's meeting at DMTC's rehearsal space, which unfortunately coincided with a rehearsal of "Victor/Victoria" at Runaway Stage Productions. Forced to choose between the private humiliation of not knowing what was happening at DMTC with the public humiliation of not knowing the words of the songs in "Victor/Victoria," I chose the private humiliation, and remained in Sacramento, at RSP, for vocal practice. Afterwards, I raced over to Davis, and found the Board meeting had adjourned, but several of us regrouped at Applebee's, where we relaxed, and told risque stories.

This strange story from my college days seemed unusually popular with the folks at both DMTC and RSP, and so I thought it was time to write it down.
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In the spring of 1978, I was living on the second floor of Coronado Hall, a large, multi-winged dormitory on the campus of the University of New Mexico, in Albuquerque. Early in the semester, I had a roommate named Ted, but round around midterms, Ted got an off-campus apartment with some friends and moved out, leaving me with two beds in the dorm room: one bed mine, and the other, formerly Ted's, now completely bare.

One random day, about two weeks after Ted moved out, I took out a hunting knife and used it for some purpose. I left the knife in the middle of Ted's empty bed. I went out in the evening and eventually returned. I lay down on my bed and immediately fell into a deep sleep, but unaccountably, I had failed to lock the door of my dorm room.

About twenty minutes after I fell asleep, the door of my dorm room opened. Fluorescent light from the hallway spilled in. Confused, and struggling to wake up, I said, "Is that you, Ted?" The stranger said, "What?" Squinting against the light, I could see the stranger was thin and had curly hair, much like one of Ted's best friends. I addressed the stranger as if he was Ted's friend, even though, at some sleepy level, I KNEW he couldn't be the same person:

"Ted's not here anymore. He's gone, he moved out."

The stranger responded:

"I'll be Ted if you want me to."

With every incentive, I sat up and struggled to awaken. The stranger closed the door and walked decisively over to my bed and sat beside me. I could smell alcohol on his breath. The stranger grabbed the covers on my lap and with a single motion, swooped the covers down to my ankles. I reached to my ankles and pulled the covers back to my lap. Again, the stranger grabbed the covers on my lap and swooped them down to my ankles, and again I reached down to my ankles and pulled the covers back to my lap. I asked the stranger, "OK, what do you want?" He said, "What if I told you I was a flaming faggot looking to get &*%$#@?" I said, "Then I'd say you are in the wrong place."

What to do? I was worried about the hunting knife, left out on Ted's bed. Did the stranger see the knife? Apparently not: with darkness restored when he closed the door, even a big knife was hard to see. Could I get to the knife first? Very risky. Not only would I have to jump over the stranger, from sitting in bed (a position of weakness if there ever was one), but there was no reason he couldn't get to the knife first, or wrestle it away from me even if I managed the feat. Violence wasn't the answer for this problem. The fellow was clearly living out a fantasy of some sort. I had to pop his fantasy bubble, and fast. But how?

So, I began talking to the fellow in a dull, drab monotone, about all manners of tedious, picayune things. I can't remember my dull monologue anymore, but I can imagine - U.S. Gross National Product under the Nixon Administration, the importance of well-written car repair manuals, the recent spread of standardized testing into the high schools, the advent of new computer-card-punch machines - you get the picture. After a while, I noticed the stranger's shoulders slump in drunken fatigue, his stubbly jaw slacken, the tension slowly disappear. Suddenly, the stranger stood up, went to the door, opened it, and left.

A dullard needs friends. Maybe I should have pressed my luck, and invited him to be my special pen pal. We could have recited the telephone book to each other, or the classified ads, or perhaps read deconstructionist literature together.

I don't often fight, but when I do, I fight dirty.

Auditions - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat

And so, the process begins again!


Monday evening, November 14th at the New Theater. Michael Miiller (left) leads the dance audition. Various people are evident, or kind-of-evident (left to right): Julia Spangler, Linnea Lampinen, Dian Hoel, Jabriel Shelton - is that Kaylynn Rothleder in the white dress? - Rachel Pinto, J. P. Villa.


Meanwhile, paint hits the lobby's walls.....

Last night, I swept construction dust and lined up dust bunnies and made them do tricks until after midnight. I discovered that the painters had left, and that I was utterly alone in the theater. As the raging winds outside made all kinds of thumping, creepy noises inside, I found I could do anything I pleased on stage, to a wild, sustained, standing ovation (of spirits!)

"Victor/Victoria" Final Show and Strike


Marcy Goodnow, as her radiant 'Victoria' alter ego.

We had our final performance of "Victor/Victoria" today! There were a few minor problems (the stunt grand piano toppled over backstage; a mirror wasn't able to be placed properly in the last scene, the setup for second Chez Lui seemed confused, etc.), but the performances were spot-on, and we had lots of fun.

Strike went quite efficiently, considering the amount of set that had to be removed. Dave Lack took the lead in dismantling the set, as he did in building it. Mischievous as ever, and suitably armed, Dave swaggered up to me as I helped coordinate lumber removal from the stage, and stated, "there are two kinds of people here - those with screw guns and those who carry" (echoing two famous lines from Sergio Leone's "The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly":

There are two kinds of people in the world, my friend: Those with a rope around the neck, and the people who have the job of doing the cutting.

and;

You see, in this world there's two kinds of people, my friend: Those with loaded guns and those who dig. You dig.

So those with guns unscrewed, and those with strong arms (or in the case of Robert, at least one strong arm) carried. I left strike at 9:30 p.m., but those who went with the truck to the warehouse will, no doubt, finish later (maybe 10:30 p.m.), but much sooner than Mike Mac's initial, considered forecast (midnight).

Many thanks to everyone involved: Bob and Lillian Baxter, Dave Lack, Kimberley Negrete, Dave Hushbeck, Nora, etc., etc. I'm reminded of something Bill Trainor said a week ago, as he spoke in admiration of the company and the way it tackles the new and unfamiliar problems presented by any show - something to the effect of: "they're really not afraid of taking risks." For a theater company, the philosophy of play-it-safe is paradoxically the riskiest course of all. Runaway Stage Productions is a vibrant asset to the Sacramento theater scene!

Here is picture gallery from the last show:


Burning with that edgy, Parisian passion: Brett Bachmann, Scott Griffith, Kaitlin Flint, Jason Parsons, Jake Montoya, and Marcy Goodnow pose for pictures.


Anticipating the thrill of the show: Bob Roe ("simply do what you do when you're YOU!") and Lauren Miller ("out of my way, pheasant!").


Jake Montoya, in a moment of reflection....


Not afraid of the bourgeosie, even as they sing 'La Marseillaise': Wendy Young Carey, Scott Griffith and Angela Yee relax prior to 'Louis Seize.'


Disoriented by doppelgangers in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles: Jason Parsons and Wendy Young Carey, backstage, just before 'Louis Seize.'


Chicago moll (Kaitlin Flint) favorably compared Clam (Chris Scarberry) to that famed French ladies' man, Napoleon, and Clam misunderstood....


Chicago doll (Monica Parisi), with her Chicago-inspired solution to bad musical theater....

Chicago, Illinois
Is Like A Shiny Toy
The Prairie State
Is Proud To State
That It's Its Pride An' Joy!

Titillation

(Pun not intended):

KYLIE Minogue may not make her usual trip home to Melbourne for Christmas this year. But she still plans to tour Australia next year. Industry sources say an announcement on the rescheduling of Minogue's Australian tour is due this month.

Theater Weekend - DMTC and RSP

Friday, November 11, 2005: Opening night of "Into The Woods" at the brand-new Hoblit Performing Arts Center, at 607 Pena, in Davis. Rich and Julia Kulmann prepare the stage (Chis Neff just out of sight, on the lift).

Vision in the dark: Jake Montoya prepares for his flamboyant entrance in 'Paris By Night,' the first number in "Victor/Victoria," Saturday night, November 12th, at Runaway Stage's 24th Street Theater in Sacramento.

Man in motion: Michael McElroy leaps upon the stage shortly after Saturday night's performance of "Victor/Victoria."

Such a beautiful set (and cumbersome at times)! On Sunday evening, it becomes a legend! Long may we remember it!

A few problems on Saturday (Angela got bonked on the head by the 'Le Jazz Hot' sign), but mostly, a fine, excellent show: our best so far!