Community Musical Theater - A Cult?

Following up on James McElroy's suggestion that Musical Theater meets some of the definitions of a cult, and like a good devotee, seeking guidance, I looked up his link to the Rational Enquirer BC's article from 2000:

What features are necessary, then, for a group to be properly called a cult? A cult attempts to impose a certain worldview on its members while rigidly preventing exposure to and arguments from competing worldviews. A cult typically has a charismatic leader whom the membership believes to be infallible, and thus above questioning.

Hmmm...Close. If you try to escape - here!, rearrange the props table. Except maybe the infallible part. I chase after Steve all the time, relentlessly questioning him about this and that, but distracted by 50 other weightier matters, he sometimes doesn't answer, so is that the same as having an infallible leader above questioning? A fallible sphinx-like leader?

The article continues: "A more appropriate definition of a cult would demand that a group exhibit most, if not all, of the following attributes:"

the group must demonstrate a considerable degree of deviance from the norms of civilized behavior observed by the more mainstream social, political, or religious organizations that try to attract adherents and shape their behavior.

With all the singers and computer geeks, and avid TV watchers....yeah, we're deviant, and proud of it!

it should be shown to cause some non-trivial harm to individuals, groups, or society as a whole.

Nah, we're just silly...

the group must engage in “thought reform” tactics to achieve conformity and compliance (i.e., tactics of the sort described by the American psychiatrist Robert Jay Lifton in his classic books on so-called “brainwashing”). These include systematic application of propaganda and social engineering techniques. Many would-be cult leaders have probably never read a textbook on these subjects but the effective ones seem to have a natural knack for such manipulativeness.

This is what the T-Shirts are for. That's why I have a whole closet full of them.

cult leaders typically demand social isolation of followers to insulate them from contrary opinions and exert the maximal force of their own manipulations. Within the cult, they try to prevent proselytes from having the time or solitude to reflect on what they are being told. Physical and emotional exhaustion are often used as a conversion tool.

Boy, that sounds like Musical Theater! Sorry about the 3 a.m. cue-to-cue rehearsal, but, as they say, the show must go on! And don't be late for the extra-special dance rehearsal at 8 a.m.!

there must be some degree of deception in recruiting efforts and the use of strong psychological or physical threats in order to retain those who join.

Don't worry, you'll have plenty of free time AFTER the show opens!

there must be a rigid hierarchy that controls all information fed to the group and an attempt to isolate members from contact with non-adherents.

Yup, that's the DMTC Board for you! We are SO effective controlling the flow of information, three-quarters of the time, we have no idea ourselves what is happening.

there must be undue demands for money, work, sexual favors, further recruiting efforts, etc.

Sexual favors? Where?

there is usually some claim of supernatural sanction in order to justify the intrusive powers and special privileges enjoyed by the group’s leader and his or her entourage.

God created DMTC!

Without most of these attributes being present, a group probably should not be labeled as a cult.

Do cult leaders possess secret powers of persuasion that are unique and irresistible? Given the strong hold they exert and the dramatic results they obtain, it may hard to believe, but the answer to this question is “no.” Cults use basically the same social conditioning and indoctrination methods described in any social psychology text.

Hmmm....I still don't think DMTC is a cult.

But you have to wonder about the names. Woodland Opera House is fairly bland name, and most people who perform there often seem pretty clear-eyed. DMTC sounds like the KGB or the CIA - a secret society with special powers. Runaway Stage sounds like a hideout characterized by an absolute evasion of responsibility, a place full of spendthrifts and fugitives. The spookiest name of all, though, is Magic Circle Theater - Ooooowwwweeeeeooooo!

The article asks "how can we recognize a cult? A fair use of the cult label for a questionable organization would require the presence of most of the items on the following checklist.

Does the group:

engage in deceptive recruitment practices? (recruiters typically disguise the true nature and aims of the group when seeking converts)

You will always be the lead player! You are bound to get an Elly Award!

tend to target vulnerable individuals, as outlined above?

How many years of vocal lessons have you taken? Good! You're vulnerable!

offer unconditional affirmation and support initially, but soon make its continuance contingent on obedience?

Blackout! Move the furniture piece! MOVE THE FURNITURE PIECE!

have a closed social system that makes a special effort to isolate acolytes from family, friends, etc.?

Not deliberately - only by time demands!

use constant bombardment with pro-group and pro-leader messages and exclusion of other messages?

Go Kings! Go Orchestra! Go DMTC!

have a rigid, authoritarian hierarchy?

There's the Board again!

have a leader and ruling clique that are perceived to possess infallible insight, supernatural powers, etc.? Do they claim to have been chosen by some higher authority to rule, and thus to be excused from the normal social restrictions on one’s behavior?

The DMTC Board was chosen by Zeus. Now, about those sexual favors again?

have an eclectic, often muddled and internally contradictory, set of teachings - usually a magic-laden philosophy that claims to have infallible answers to those “big ticket” questions of existence?

Boy, that's DMTC to a tee!

Close James, but no cigar - we're not quite a cult. Now, if you don't mind, I have to render unto Steve that which is Steve's....

Tropical Storm Lane - A Hurricane John Doppelganger?

After my Hurricane John forecasting debacle, I wanted the Pacific to just shut up for awhile, but the Pacific has other ideas.

Tropical Storm Lane may be following a similar path to Hurricane John, and may well end up in the same place, bumping up the Baja coast, and crashing into Sonora and Sinaloa, causing even more flooding excitement in the El Paso, TX area.

Once again, there are indications that the storm may perturb AZ, without actually hitting it very hard. There's even a smaller satellite storm forecast to be located to the west of Hurricane Lane, and interacting with it in a complex way, akin to Hurricane Kristy and its complex interactions with Hurricane John.

I'm bitter, but still hoping for rain. That, after all, is the time-honored Arizona way!

"Oliver!" Auditions, September 17 & 18, At DMTC

Audition dates: Sunday, September 17 and Monday, September 18, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
Callbacks: Tuesday, September 19, 2006 at 7:30 p.m.
Directed & Choreographed by Jan Isaacson At the Hoblit Performing Arts Center, 607 Pena Drive

Character Descriptions:

• Oliver (9-13 years old) strong boy soprano, loving, sad, hopeful.
• Fagin-Character actor, must sing well, houses and trains pickpockets, miserly, welcoming
• Nancy-Strong belter, rough, kind, strong-will, sympathetic, Bill Sykes girlfriend
• Mr. Bumble-Legit Tenor, workhouse boss, mean, over bearing, pompous
• Widow Corney-Strong character actress, workhouse mistress, domineering, fussy, proud, sharp-tongued
• The Artful Dodger (12-25 years old) Fagin’s brightest pupil, friendly, optimistic
• Bill Sykes-Baritone-Bass, must sing, a villain who associated and does business with Fagin, rough, brutish, glowering, violent
• Bet-idolizes Nancy, pretty, sweet, strong-willed
• Mr. Sowerberry-Character role, funeral home owner, grim, formal, graceful
• Mrs. Sowerberry-Character actress, Funeral home owner’s wife, sour, middle-aged woman, mean
• Charlotte-Daughter of Funeral home owner, lazy, mean, sour-faced
• Noah Claypool-Lazy, shop keeping apprentice, mean, taunting, coward
• Mr. Brownlow-Wealthy gentleman, Oliver’s unknowing grandfather, kind, mannerly, sympathetic
• Mrs. Bedwin-Brownlow’s housekeeper, kind, motherly
• Dr. Grimwig-Aristocratic doctor for the wealthy, friendly
• Charlie Bates-2nd in command of Fagin’s boys
• Who Will Buy Sellers-Men and women legit singers.
• Fagin’s Boys-must sing and move well
• Workhouse Boys (girls and boys)
• Large Ensemble of singers and dancers (of all ages) who will fill in numerous roles
  

Performances November 10-Dec 3, 2006; Fridays and Saturdays at 8:15 p.m. and Sundays at 2:15 p.m.
You do not have to come both days. Please bring sheet music for a song that you already know and are comfortable singing. You do not have to sing the entire song, just enough to give the director and music director an idea of how well you can carry a tune and follow our piano player’s accompaniment (no pre-taped music or a cappella, please).

Just For A Tank Of Gas

An excellent series of articles from the Chicago Tribune, methodically tracing just what sorts of deals had to go down to get your next tank of gas to your pump nozzle.

Catching Up On The In-Box

MikeMac sent this one a month ago...a trailer of an upcoming movie featuring Robin Williams as a presidential candidate.

Pass The Potatoes, Please

Noel sent this link, where the Chicago Sun Times religion columnist ponders whether Baptists, among others, just eat way too much at church functions. I can't answer that question, but late night gluttony after DMTC shows has helped put the pounds on me:

"America is becoming known as a nation of gluttony and obesity, and churches are a feeding ground for this problem," says Ken Ferraro, a Purdue sociology professor who studied more than 2,500 adults over a span of eight years looking at the correlation between their religious behavior and their body mass index.

...Ferraro's most recent study, published in the June issue of the Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion, is a follow-up to a study he published in 1998, where he found there were more obese people in states with larger populations of folks claiming a religious affiliation than elsewhere -- particularly in states with the most Baptists.

So it's not surprising that Ferraro's latest study found that about 27 percent of Baptists, including Southern Baptists, North American Baptists, and Fundamentalist Baptist, were obese.

Surely there are several contributing factors to such a phenomenon, but when Ferraro accounted for geography (southern cooking is generally more high-caloric), race and even whether overweight folks were attracted to churches for moral support, the statistics still seem to indicate that some churches dispense love handles as well as the love of the Lord.

Having attended a Southern Baptist church for most of my formative years, I was hardly shocked by Ferraro's discoveries. From the coffee (and doughnuts) hour after Sunday-morning worship, to the huge potluck dinners and the Sunday-night ice-cream socials, there was always food around, and it was rarely the lo-cal variety. Ambrosia salad. Seventeen different kinds of chicken/broccoli/cheese casserole. Banana-and-Nilla-wafer-pudding. Fried chicken. Barbecue chicken. Sweet tea. Those were the elements of our social sacraments at the Baptist church.

In religious traditions where drinking alcohol, smoking anything and even dancing are vices regularly preached against from the pulpit, overeating has become the "accepted vice," Ferraro says.

Or, as Homer Simpson so eloquently put it on his way to a First Church of Springfield picnic: "If God didn't want us to eat in church, he'd have made gluttony a sin."

...Food often is substituted for alcohol at Baptist and other conservative Protestant gatherings, Ferraro says. I once attended a wedding at a conservative Bible church where, instead of an open bar or champagne fountain, the bride and groom toasted their new beginning with a massive ice-cream sundae buffet.

...While some megachurches have fitness facilities and long have offered exercise classes as well as Bible studies, in most congregations you're still more likely to find a bake sale than a spinning class on any given Sunday.

Ferraro's study also found that about 20 percent of "Fundamentalist Protestants," (Church of Christ, Pentecostal, Assemblies of God and Church of God); about 18 percent of "Pietistic Protestants," (Methodist, Christian Church and African Methodist Episcopal), and about 17 percent of Catholics were obese.

By contrast, about 1 percent of the Jewish population and less than 1 percent of other non-Christians, including Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and others), were tipping the scales with commensurate gusto.

"In my mind, one of the distinctive things about Christianity, particularly American Protestant Christianity, is we don't have any [dietary] behavior codes," said Daniel Sack of Chicago, a historian and author of the 2000 book, Whitebread Protestants: Food and Religion in American Culture.

"Islam does, Judaism does, Catholicism does, but basically there's nothing scriptural and in most [Protestant] traditions as long as you don't drink, you're fine. Particularly in that Baptist cohort, that's the only real rule."

"West Side Story" - Wednesday Night Rehearsal

This Round's On Me!

I wonder what the musical theater impact is on income?:

People who consume alcohol earn significantly more at their jobs than non-drinkers, according to a US study that highlighted "social capital" gained from drinking.

The study published in the Journal of Labor Research Thursday concluded that drinkers earn 10 to 14 percent more than teetotalers, and that men who drink socially bring home an additional seven percent in pay.

"Social drinking builds social capital," said Edward Stringham, an economics professor at San Jose State University and co-author of the study with fellow researcher Bethany Peters.

"Social drinkers are out networking, building relationships, and adding contacts to their BlackBerries that result in bigger paychecks."

The authors acknowledged their study, funded by the Reason Foundation, a libertarian think tank, contradicted research released in 2000 by the Harvard School of Public Health. "We created our hypothesis through casual observation and examination of scholarly accounts," the authors said. "Drinkers typically tend to be more social than abstainers."

The researchers said their empirical survey backed up the theory, and said the most likely explanation is that drinkers have a wider range of social contacts that help provide better job and business opportunities.

...The researchers found some differences in the economic effects of drinking among men and women. They concluded that men who drink earn 10 percent more than abstainers and women drinkers earn 14 percent more than non-drinkers.

However, unlike men, who get a seven percent income boost from drinking in bars, women who frequent bars at least once per month do not show higher earnings than women drinkers who do not visit bars.

"Perhaps women increase social capital apart from drinking in bars," the researchers said in an effort to explain the gender gap.

Reverse Graffiti

Paul Curtis challenges authorities by selectively cleaning dirty surfaces.

Idiocracy

Mike Judge's new movie sounds like a winner. It's going to be hard to find, though:

So when soldier Joe Bowers (Luke Wilson) wakes up 500 years in the future, the result of a botched hibernation experiment, he finds the country hopelessly dense and incapable of solving the most basic problems. Buildings are teetering and collapsing. Garbage towers high in the streets. Farm fields are barren because a sponsor pumps salty energy drink into every place water used to be -- including the irrigation systems.

Most everyone in 2505 is a mouth-breathing lout, barely capable of forming a sentence. They've elected as president the guy who seems cool to them, a loudmouthed porn-star wrestler (unfailingly funny Terry Crews, the dad from "Everybody Hates Chris"). They pass their days consuming, defecating, fornicating and gawking at anything that goes boom. Then consuming some more. And because they don't know any better, they've let themselves be co-opted by corporate marketers, taking brands ("Frito") for names and wearing disposable clothes covered with ads.

"West Side Story" Photos - Monday Night Rehearsal

"Cool" - Doc's Shop




"Cool" - Doc's Shop





Riff (right, Robert Coverdell) chastises Bernardo (left, David Ott).

Tupac Shakur - Ten Years Gone

Odd cult, that. Still is:

Tupac Shakur, born Lesane Parish Crooks in June 1971, was raised by Afeni Shakur, a radical Black Panther who represented herself in a murder case in the late 1960s and won. His mother renamed him Tupac Shakur after Tupac Amaru II, an Incan revolutionary.

...Besides his high-profile shooting, Shakur left his mark in music. He's listed in the Guinness Book of World Records as the best-selling rap and hip-hop artist ever, selling more than 73 million albums worldwide. Most of Shakur's songs are about growing up around violence and hardship, ghetto life, racism and his public feuds with fellow rappers, including The Notorious B.I.G, who was murdered six months after Shakur in a similar drive-by shooting.

As a teenager, Shakur read Shakespeare and Machiavelli's The Prince. Many of the lyrics on his album "All Eyez on Me," which was released the year before his death, reference classic works.

"Now rule two is a hard one, watch for phonies," Shakur wrote. "Keep yo' enemies close ... Watch yo' homies."

The Blob

Don't fool around with Mother Nature:

Nothing, it seems, can stop the mud. For more than three months, the hot, noxious goop has spewed up through a crack in the earth at a natural-gas exploration site, swamping everything in its path.

The expanding, surreal gray lake with the stench of rotten eggs has enveloped more than 10 square miles of land in eastern Java, Indonesia's most densely populated island. The flow has forced 8,000 to 10,000 people from their homes, engulfed about a dozen factories, contaminated fish farms and intermittently closed a major highway.

... Nerves have frayed over the slow and uneven response to the crisis by government agencies and Lapindo Brantas, the politically connected company with a controlling stake in the exploration project. Frustration spilled over last week when displaced villagers set fire to a camp of tents used by Lapindo workers.

... At the shore of the mud lake, white smoke billows ominously. Large bubbles burp at the center, marking the roughly 50-foot-wide crack, where temperatures reach about 140 degrees. Only rooftops and the tips of denuded trees poke above the surface of the mud, which is 20 feet deep in places.

...On the white wall of his home, Haryanto, 47, had scrawled, "Beware of Lapindo's henchmen." "I saw them on TV promising that they will reimburse everything, every little thing," he said angrily. "They promised that. That is why I still live here, with the mud. I don't want to go to the [market]. This is my house, and I want them to see that."

...Meanwhile, the mudflow continues. The chief of one flooded village recently offered a free house to anyone who could use magic to stop the flow. More than 60 people from around the country have tried, the chief said, but no one has succeeded.

He's Back!

El Niño.

Gary Weddle's Beard

He won't shave until Osama bin Laden is caught. With Dubya in charge, Weddle will no doubt be soon stepping on the beard's graying, frayed ends.

A New Bird

India has abundant natural riches:

A new bird species has been found in India, the first time such a discovery has been made here in more than 50 years, an astronomer and keen bird watcher said Tuesday.

The multicolored bird, Bugun Liocichla, was spotted in May in the remote Eaglenest Wildlife Sanctuary in India's northeastern state of Arunachal Pradesh near the border with China, said Ramana Athreya, a member of Mumbai's Natural History Society.

Athreya, who found the bird, named it after the Bugun tribe, which lives in the area. The bird has a black cap, a bright yellow patch around the eyes and yellow, crimson, black and white patches on the wings, he told The Associated Press.

...Athreya caught two of the species, but released them after making detailed notes and taking photographs -- and keeping feathers that had worked loose in his net.

"We thought the bird was just too rare for one to be killed," Athreya said.

Dave's Continental Fans

Continental Europe might be unusually fertile soil for Dave Nachmanoff's folk/rock music. Dave has a Ph.D. in philosophy, and can easily use the heaviest intellectual artillery in what might superficially appear to be vapid, light-hearted folk music.

And every performer needs fans. True fans are hard to come by.

Dave Nachmanoff has a German fan named Stefan, who is doing his utmost to pave the way for Dave's music in continental Europe. Stefan writes:

Hi Mark,

Just got and read your guestbook entry - thanks a lot that you've thought of that and have done it!

It's unbelievable that as per my impression Dave's capacity hasn't reached this in this respect dreamy/bemused old Europe so far (the UK fans have always orientated more to the US of course, and he has been there several times), therefore we have had more US than European visitors on the temporary eu site until now. But I'm convinced that should change rapidly as soon as the Al Stewart tour will have reached this continental part and folks will have experienced what they have missed in their lives until now, by the cause of Dave's opening sets!

And I'm sure you definitely appreciate that wonder of a person living round your corner! I saw him only once in my life, that was last year in England, when I went there for my first Al concert ever. Dave's performance and personality was gripping, and since that night I cannot get loose of his music and intellectual excitation - it's magic!

At least everybody in my personal surrounding who has had to listen to it is smitten with amazement on the spot. So that assures me that there are miracles coming up to old Europe very soon.

Best regards, and thanks again!

Stefan Hesse

I reply:

Glad to make your acquaintance, Stefan!

Even though I live near Dave's home, this concert was the first time I had ever heard him, or heard of him. I'm Treasurer of a community musical theater group called Davis Musical Theater Company (DMTC) and last year we built a new theater. We had to secure so many bank loans that now we are struggling to maintain our finances. We have to find ways to use the new facility to generate money when we don't have shows of our own to present, and so we decided to host travelling musicians for their concerts.

But who would be the first musician? Ben Wormeli, who plays electric guitar for our shows said, "let's get Dave Nachmanoff!" We all said "Dave who?" (We don't follow the local folk music scene much.) But we trust Ben, and his judgment of local musicians, so we said "let's proceed with Dave Nachmanoff!"

I was very impressed with Dave, and his fantastic musical skills. I bought four of his CDs after the concert.

This week, Dave is in a recording studio in Los Angeles, no doubt preparing something for his fans.

You are going to have a special musical treat, come December!

Marc Valdez

So, What Were You Doing September 11, 2001?

Shocking events will often leave vivid memories. Where were you, and what were you doing, when you about heard "X?"

Several events have left their mark in my lifetime, including:

• Assassination of JFK (I had just returned from lunch recess to Mrs. James' 2nd grade class);
• Newark riots (watched on NBC);
• Assassination of RFK (at the kitchen table, reading about it in the paper, the following morning);
• Resignation of Richard Nixon (hiking on the southern leg of the trail encircling Lake Louise, in Banff National Park, Alberta, Canada);
• Attempted assassination of Ronald Reagan (in the basement of the Student Union building at the University of Arizona, at lunchtime);
• Destruction of the Space Shuttle Challenger (entering my lab at the Ft. Valley Experimental Forest Station, 5 mi. NW of Flagstaff, AZ);
• Death of Princess Diana (heard about the accident on the evening news, just prior to going to bed);
• Destruction of the Space Shuttle Columbia (just pulled out of my driveway in Sacramento).

On September 11th, 2001, I awoke (~ 9:30 a.m.) to the sound of a car radio blaring in the DMV parking lot outside my bedroom window. Clearly, the listener felt something important was going on, and the radio was loud enough that I could make out some phrases, but it was quite baffling. The radio announcer said that the President's plane would soon land in Washington, D.C. This was strange - didn't the President's plane land nearly every day in Washington, D.C.? So, I decided something must be wrong with the President's plane, like maybe the landing gear was stuck, or something, so I ambled over to the TV and turned it on, with the thought running in my head, 'well, this ought to be good for a laugh.'

Despite people's repeated assertions on TV that the World Trade Center buildings had collapsed, I refused to believe it for at least an hour, attributing pictures of falling debris to a falling facade rather than to the structures themselves (When I tuned in, they weren't showing pictures of the second plane's impact, or pictures of the collapse taken from the distance, but rather of close-up pictures that couldn't readily show the scale of the disaster.)

Later that day, walking the streets, I noticed the absence of aircraft in the sky, and it was eerie knowing the few planes left in the sky were solely military aircraft. I wondered where those aircraft were going, and what was going to happen next. I also worried about Al Qaeda-piloted kamikaze Central Valley cropdusters dropping nerve toxins unannounced in Sacramento for at least a week or so.

Blog O' The Day - Badtux

John recommends Badtux, the Snarky Penguin.

Today, Badtux, The Cynical Penguin, disparages the Baby Boom Generation.

I'm all for it (since I'm not a Baby Boomer, no matter what the calendar, or all my friends say), but the acid test is 'what does Gen-X Gabe think?'

Gabe says:

I don’t know if I like the analogy of the Reichstag fire either. George Bush isn’t Hitler. I find it a tired analogy (can we be any more lazy than to always refer to Hitler and the Nazis?). If there is a more apt analogy, I would prefer to see one of the 19th Century (or early 20th) monarchs, like George IV, or the Kaiser, or someone else.

Does that make any sense?

P.S. He does seem like a thoughtful fellow, though, but not one to my liking.

That's a Gen-X guy for you! Picky, picky! Thank goodness I'm from my own independent generation (born in October, 1956), where our daring freethinkingness is matched only by our laziness at picking out Nazi analogies, whether appropriate or not, any day of the week, on any subject imaginable.

WTC Spam

I won't link to the advertisment, but I was impressed by the chutzpah. Pretty soon, they'll have WTC booths at the State Fair, and you can toss balsa-wood gliders at Twin Tower milk bottles, with stuffed animals for those who knock them over:

This historic 2-piece memorial transforms into a magnificent standing sculpture of the Twin Towers, and is clad in 24 KT gold and .999 Pure Silver recovered from Ground Zero!

$5 of every commemorative order is donated to official 9/11 family charities and memorials.

This groundbreaking non-monetary issue will never be released for circulation. It is available through this special private minting for collectors only!

The World Trade Center skyline is lavishly clad in gleaming silver that was miraculously recovered from a bank vault found under tons of debris at Ground Zero. Now, to mark the fifth anniversary, the same silver that was reclaimed from the destruction has been used to cover the magnificent Twin Towers depicted in the 2001-2006 World Trade Center Commemorative.

"West Side Story" Tech Week Begins at DMTC

Left, foreground: Katherine Vanderford sings 'Somewhere,' on Sunday afternoon.

David Nachmanoff Concert - DMTC - Saturday night

Left: Donna Lemongello (left), an audience member Saturday night (but a fellow band member with Dave Nachmanoff in the nineties) sings a song with Dave (right) Saturday night.


Experiments are a good thing, especially the kind where you throw something against the wall, to see what sticks. For the inaugural concert of DMTC's "Keep the Music in Your Community" series, we carefully placed Dave Nachmanoff in a medieval-style catapult, outfitted him with a bicycle helmet (for safety's sake), and flung him against one of the new walls of the Hoblit Performing Arts Center. Lo, and behold! Dave stuck!

What an excellent concert! About 45 folks showed up, mostly die-hard Dave Nachmanoff fans - some from the Bay Area, some from the Sierra foothills, and one couple from Arizona! He sang some of his favorite sings: 'Gulliver, The Cowboy Cat," "The Pope Valley Hubcap King," "The Loyalist," and he sang "Sophia," as his daughter, who was sitting behind me, told her mom, "Daddy's singing about me!" He also sang as tribute song to my neighbor, well-known Sacramento bassist Erik Kleven, who recently perished in a head-on collision on Highway 16 near Rancho Murietta. The song was called "Without a Compass or a Map." He also sang a song about a local place, "George's Corner," about the intersection of Second and L Streets, in Davis.

Dave is going into a recording studio this coming week, and this December, he will be touring in Europe with fellow singer, Al Stewart.

"Glorious" (and one of Ben Wormeli's favorite songs)

Have you ever seen a newborn baby?
The wonder in her eyes
Every sight and sound astounding
Every moment's a surprise
Mother's smiling at her laughter
Father's babbling like a child
Now they're cast into a new world
By the glory of her smile

We were glorious once, and we're glorious still
If we take the time to look, we can see the glory well

"A Certain Distance"

And the satellite is beaming down its signal, to your tiny town
But nothing's getting through
He's much too far from you and you know it
There's a certain distance

"El Niño"

They're catching stingray in Washington State
Down south, there's nothing but drought
There's brush fires all over Australia
And in the north, it's flooding them out

The tradewinds are stuck in the doldrums
The Pacific's receded and warm
The forecast is gloomy for winter
What's causing this tropical storm?

El Niño
blame it all on El Niño
It's because of El Niño
Says the man on the news

El Niño
blame it all on El Niño
That anomalous weather phenomenon from Peru

My last 15 gigs have been empty
It seems like I'm under a curse
The computer is invaded by gremlins
And the stock market couldn't be worse

I broke a nail last Thursday
And the dog somehow injured his paw
I gained 20 pounds, and lost my wife

I tell you, there must be a cause!


I asked Dave what kind of music he calls what he sings: folk, rock, emo, reggae, jambalaya, what? He said, "I don't know - historical folk-rock?" Whatever it's called, it's very intelligent!

Regarding DMTC's plans for its concert series, locally-base singer/songwriter Dave Nachmanoff offered some advice. He suggested keeping a local component to the artists that DMTC brings in. Local artists have local fans, who can be counted on to show up. Local artists will ask less in the form of a money guarantee. And since the only viable local alternative, short of the "Palms," is passing the tip jar at the "Delta of Venus" coffeehouse, local artists may even forgo a guarantee altogether, perhaps in exchange for a portion of the gate. Artists brought in from outside will have no alternative but to have a money guarantee, and since they may not have a local fan base, DMTC might end up losing money on them. The risk is greater.

As DMTC Treasurer, I was pleased with the inaugural concert. The concert brought in slightly more than the most-recent "Dancing Through The Decades" dance, but with fewer food and decorating expenses. As we develop a reputation in the community for these events, and as attendance rises, we will benefit all the more.

Thank you, Dave, for the wonderful music, and for being such a sport!

Explanations

Cop 1: "Ma'am, we really don't care whether he's taking a long time. What matters is what the homeowner thinks."
E: "He called me a bitch, and threatened!"
M: "You threw a pair of shears and hit him in the back!"
E: "He's stupid!"
Cop 2: "That isn't against the law, ma'am!"

"Harvey" - Chautauqua Playhouse(first draft)

Left: Harvey (playing himself) takes a bow on the (stage right half of the) set.


I was late in arriving for the show, so much of the exposition I missed. I haven't seen "Harvey" since 1999, when Solano Community College did it. The caharacters seemed to be quite strong, though.

Daryl Petrig played a wistful, whimsical Elwood P. Dowd, one very pleasant fellow, except for an apparent mental glitch: he has an imaginary friend! Richard Spierto was excellent, as always, as Dr. William Chumley, and Monique McKisson was so funny as Dr. Chumley's wife, Betty. The rest of the cast was strong as well: Cathy Rasmussen as Veta Simmons, Melissa Rae Frago as Myrtle Mae Simmons, Olivia and Brad Carpenter as Nirse Kelly and Dr. Sanderson.

I was very surprised to see John Montagna as Taxi Driver E.F. Lofgren: John is a theater fan and a long-time DMTC Season Ticket subscriber, but I didn't realize he sometimes jumps the fence and gets on-stage as well! Wonders never cease!

Left: Cloudy, Harvey's biggest groupie and autograph hound, edges cautiously in (as rabbits always do) trying to get a closer look.

Russell Postell, General Manager of KXTV-10, Responds

Here is Mr. Postell's reply to my E-Mail message:

The movie is a docu-drama based on findings from the 9/11 commission and is not meant to lay blame, but rather to outline events leading up to the tragedy.

Individuals at News10 from both sides of the political fence have watched the movie and did not feel that it was accusatory nor did they feel that it was defamatory to one particular political party. If indeed this ABC drama contains scenes that are simply not true, or gross distortions of actual events, it will be widely reported. Critics can then specifically point out which events were wrongly portrayed in the ABC docu-drama. We may all end up learning more about the actual events that lead up to September 11th.

Since the movie has not aired, opinions at this point are entirely based on premature assumptions. Below is ABC's statement concerning the film:

Statement from an ABC Spokesperson:

The Path to 9/11 is a dramatization, not a documentary, drawn from a variety of sources, including the 9/11 commission report, other published materials and from personal interviews. The events that lead to 9/11 originally sparked great debate, so it's not surprising that a movie surrounding those events has revived the debate. The attacks were a pivotal moment in our history that should never be forgotten and it's fitting that the discussion continues.

The following disclaimer will air throughout the movie:

"The following movie is a dramatization that is drawn from a variety of sources including the 9/11 Commission Report and other published materials, and from personal interviews. The movie is not a documentary. For dramatic and narrative purposes, the movie contains fictionalized scenes, composite and representative characters and dialogue, as well as time compression."

Please be assured that we are logging all viewer comments and they will be shared with ABC.

If you wish to send your comments to ABC, you can do so through the following outlets

*E-mail: go to ABC.com, scroll to the bottom of the page and click on "Contact ABC"
*Phone: 818-460-7477

Russell Postell
President & General Manager
News10 Sacramento, Stockton and Modesto

Here is my reply:

Mr. Postell:

Based on previews, critics are already pointing out which scenes are wrongly portrayed. There is no point in learning history by learning falsehoods first, thus feeding the flames of superstition.

Knowingly broadcasting false and defamatory information leads to a great debate all right, namely, which tree limb ABC/Disney (and KXTV) executives look best swinging from. I, for one, will not watch this travesty of recent history. I have more self-respect than that.

Monday morning, provided the show is not cancelled, I will gladly support efforts to boycott advertisers on KXTV and strip KXTV of its broadcast license.

Marc Valdez

Still A Chance To Stop It

Interesting analysis:

Given what I know about how big corporations think, I bet the political slant to the movie wasn't strictly intentional on Disney's part. I bet that Disney's ABC division used a set of PR firms and flacks that decided that 9/11 belonged to conservatives, and so hired conservative movement players to produce, market, and distribute this film. They got Tom Kean, so there was adult supervision. What a perfect event setup, to make ABC the place for the country to turn on 9/11. In this fragmented universe, wouldn't it be great to have a time when the country came together, on one place, to really understand this event through the medium of television. And how wonderful if this were on ABC. It would be AN EVENT.

Ha ha ha.

Of course, Mr. Iger was pitched a total fraud by his subordinates, who probably had it pitched to them in turn, with pitches upon pitches until you get to a nest of right-wing marketing people who think of themselves as internet savants, but are actually just kind of stupid and tied in to the dregs of the right-wing blogs. And now Iger probably feels tricked by his subordinates, who have allowed Disney to aid and abet a right-wing propaganda campaign. The higher-ups just didn't notice what was happening because their corporate controls are awful - ABC Entertainment made this piece of shit instead of ABC News.

The fallout from this is bad, but it's going to get worse. Disney has a full-on PR and political disaster on their hands, and they've handled it horribly. With real but oblique threats to their very broadcast licensing schema, ABC has clammed up and gone into full 'counterproductive big company clusterfuck mode', obviously lying to the public about the film still not being completed, and insulting its critics to boot.

That's not smart. Remember, the people doing the lying to the public on Disney/ABC's behalf are the same people who thought that this film would be AN EVENT, or at least ok'd it.

There is a window of time now for Mr. Iger to step up, an 'apologize for Tylenol tampering' moment. He needs to cancel this miniseries, and take personal responsibility for inadequate oversight. He should privately fire the people responsible for this total disaster of a project, and apologize. That's the only way to restore Disney's brand among a large group of very angry people. Be brave, be public, and be honorable. It'll work.

Call KXTV-10

Let General Manager Russell Postell know how you think:

Dear Mr. Postell:

On behalf of Sacramentans who do not want politically-inspired hit jobs to be given valuable air-time, please intercede to stop KXTV-10 from airing "Path to 9/11" on Sunday. The spectacle was designed specifically to distort history, by blaming everything on the Clinton Administration, facts be damned. The director is directly tied to evangelists with a mission to change Hollywood from the inside (presumably stooping to use whatever tactics necessary, including outright lies). All's fair in love and politics, as they might say!

We'll remember KXTV-10's decision, and whether or not it participated in such a disgusting smear job.

Maybe More Than They Bargained For?

A man with a plan:

The director of ABC's controversial "Path to 9/11" docudrama has ties to an evangelical Christian group whose goals include "transform[ing] Hollywood from the inside out," according to research by readers of prominent blogs.

Did Disney get hoodwinked by a director with a plan to blame everything on Clinton? Or was the director chosen specifically by Disney because he had such a plan already prepared? Chicken or egg, the Mouse is now in danger.

Horse's Head In The Bed

The Senate Democratic leadership sent a letter to Disney today threatening legal and legislative penalties if it goes ahead with its 9/11 show. The letter is so filled with menace that even the stupidest executive can't fail to see the danger.

Come on, Disney, proceed!

He Ran; He Lost

A battered-looking man, with his arm in a sling, sitting down at Subway Restaurant. His T-Shirt read: 'Run Against Pain.'

Rocket Man

William Shatner:

The Star Trek legend was offered a ticket by Richard Branson onboard Virgin Galactic's first passenger flight in 2008.

...The 75-year-old actor said: "I'm interested in man's march into the unknown but to vomit in space is not my idea of a good time. Neither is a fiery crash with the vomit hovering over me."

...He added: "I do want to go up but I need guarantees I'll definitely come back."

Introverts And Casinos

First impressions:

"I remember when [my husband and I] went to Las Vegas after we were first married," Laney says in her book. "I staggered through the casino, my brain numbed. Colors danced everywhere, and lights exploded in my eyes. The clanking of winners' coins tumbling into metal catchers pounded in my head ... I was pea green and felt like a trout I once saw lying on a bed of crushed ice in a fish market. At least the trout got to lie down."

Film Noir Style

Just a fun article about the style of film noir.

Dave Nachmanoff Concert At DMTC On Saturday!



Looking forward to this concert! Dave has a stellar reputation for excellent singing and guitar-playing.

A Time For Stripping; A Time For Not Stripping

Contrary to my standard view of the world, whereby stripping is always appropriate, there are apparently times when it isn't:

Some of Australia's leading scientists were still reeling from shock and disgust yesterday after a Federal Government-sponsored conference featured a sexy show by a group of burlesque dancers, ending in a mass walk-out.

Experts and academics attending Wednesday night's dinner at Old Parliament House in Canberra were flabbergasted when the evening's entertainment - a group of eight scantily clad women - wandered out.

Lead dancer and founder of Miss Kitka's House of Burlesque, Rebecca Gale, emerged clothed in red balloons, which she then encouraged male members of the audience to pop.

The dinner was supposed to be the highlight of the three-day Australia New Zealand Climate Forum, held at the Australian National University.

Instead event organisers were left red-faced when the few female scientists in the audience walked out. A disappointed, but not entirely surprised, group of dancers stopped their 45-minute routine after about 10 minutes.

Burlesque is a cabaret style of striptease, which combines crude humour and theatrical costumes with sexually suggestive poses and routines.

..."The intent was lighthearted entertainment," forum organisers Professor Michael Hutchinson and Dr Jenny Kesteven said in a statement.

"In retrospect the choice of entertainment was inappropriate for the occasion. We understand if the sponsors wish to withdraw. We trust that this will not reflect on the very productive contributions made by the Australia New Zealand Climate Forum."

Gale, who teaches women across Canberra the art of burlesque dancing, said she was disappointed her group was being referred to as "cheap strippers". "We're not that," she said.

Lisa Pavlinovic, one of Gale's students, said she was "not surprised" people had walked out on the show. "I was sceptical when we were asked to do the performance," she said. "But (the organisers) were armed with all the information on us. We definitely tailored the act to make sure we weren't too over the top. We chose carefully, but at the end of the day we were asked to do a job and we did what we do best."

Pavlinovic said the burlesque group was focused on raising women's self-esteem and confidence. "We never intended to go along and offend anybody," she said.

Time For Action

Time to boycott Disneyland and Disney World, and as many Disney products as we can think of.

Actually, Hollywood has long used various artifices to tell history, including made-up characters, time compression, and altogether-false retelling of stories, in order to to make the action more dramatic and compelling. Using these same artifices for 9/11 won't work, however, since the principals are all very much alive, and the stories fairly well-understood already.

Plus, it's all done with the intention of blaming the Clinton Administration for everything, and doing so with blatant falsehoods. This 9/11 TV show is being distributed free in schools as history too!

If historical inaccuracies and conservative outrage were enough to get CBS to offload its history of the Reagan's to Cable TV, liberal outrage should be enough to provoke a response here (unless, of course, the media's conservative bias hasn't already locked this smear into place).

What the corporate world won't do for the Bush Administration! Send an E-Mail with your complaints!

ABC's Revisionist History

This upcoming ABC/Disney mockumentary about 9/11 purports to be unbiased, but there are Bush Administration fingerprints all over the bald-faced lies it will present. Time to mobilize....

Here's Hoping!

Trouble in Labour land:

An all-out power struggle between the chancellor and the prime minister, culminating with allegations of blackmail by Tony Blair and a ferocious shouting match between the two men, appeared last night to have forced Mr Blair to publicly declare as early as today that he will not be prime minister this time next year.

That may not be enough for Gordon Brown, who is understood to have demanded that Mr Blair quit by Christmas, with an effective joint premiership until a new leader is anointed by the party.

...In probably the most astonishing day in the annals of New Labour, the use of the word blackmail to describe Mr Brown's actions over the past few days by Downing Street staff was authorised by Mr Blair, and reflected his view that Mr Brown is orchestrating a coup against him. Downing Street claimed the resignation yesterday of the junior defence minister Tom Watson and six parliamentary aides came with Mr Brown's agreement. The seven men quit the government demanding that Mr Blair stand down immediately. Later in the evening, another of the letter's signatories, Iain Wright, resigned as a parliamentary private secretary in the Department of Health.

Downing Street's allegations led to counter accusations from the Brown camp of intimidation of backbench MPs by No 10 aides desperate to cling to office. As a result, the chances of the much prized stable and orderly transition between the two men looked to have collapsed.

The recriminations came after meetings between the two men at Downing Street ended yesterday afternoon with Mr Blair rejecting Mr Brown's terms for allowing him to remain in office, including an accelerated timetable for Mr Blair's resignation by Christmas, and an effective joint premiership in the interim.

Crikey! Tasteless Humor!

Funny, however.

"I'm Ready For My Profile, Mr. DeMille"

Research confirming what we've all suspected anyway. I get a kick over the 'seven' components too:

Celebrities have more narcissistic personality traits than the general population, and people with narcissistic tendencies seem to be attracted to the entertainment industry rather than the industry creating narcissists, according to a groundbreaking study conducted by researchers Drew Pinsky of the Keck School of Medicine of USC and S. Mark Young of the USC Marshall School of Business and the USC Annenberg School for Communication.

..."Narcissists generally crave attention, are overconfident of their abilities, lack empathy, and can evince erratic behavior," said Pinsky, who is an assistant clinical professor of Psychiatry at USC. "However, they are also well-liked, especially on first meeting, are extroverted and perform well in public."

To conduct their research Pinsky and Young employed a well-validated personality research instrument, the Narcissistic Personality Inventory (NPI), which has been used by researchers for more than two decades. The NPI test divides narcissism into seven components: superiority, exhibitionism, entitlement, vanity, authority, exploitiveness, and entitlement.

The authors found that the celebrities participating in the study had statistically significantly higher narcissism scores compared to aspiring business leaders (MBA students) and the general population. Reality TV personalities had the highest overall narcissism scores when compared with actors, musicians and comedians.

What's more, while men are more likely than women to evince narcissistic traits in the general population, the authors found that, among celebrities, females were more narcissistic than their male counterparts.

...The research data were collected anonymously and confidentially from celebrities selected at random during guest appearances on the nationally syndicated Westwood One radio show "Loveline," based at the KROQ-FM radio station in Los Angeles. The celebrities were administered the NPI test during breaks on the show, which Pinsky has hosted for the past 20 years.

Twigs And Berries - "The Full Monty" - Runaway Stage Productions

Left: Over the entrance of the 24th Street Theater. Does the illustration show a bit too much leg for general public consumption?


A very pleasant, libertine kind of Sunday afternoon, checking out Runaway Stage's "The Full Monty."

This is a fun comedy. According to the RSP folks, it sold very well on Friday and Saturday evenings, but because it was a holiday weekend, because events like the State Fair and the Rainbow Festival were sucking out the oxygen in the Sacramento air, and because the Sunday matinee audiences tend to be older (and presumably less interested in risque material), attendance was off. Well, there's just no excuse for that! Round up the girls (and the guys) - even if everyone is just out of church - and head on over!

Left: Final Bows - Actors acknowledge the orchestra, conducted by Christopher Cook (right).

Left to right: At edge of photo, Mary Young. Floyd Harden, Lauren Miller, Tristan Rumery, Craig Howard, Michael R.J. Campbell, Scott Fera, Stephen Russell, Kyle Young, Netty Carey, Sammy Duncan, Anahita Savarnejad, Andrew Skogkebo.


I was quite impressed with Scott Fera, who played an excellent Jerry Lukowski. It was pleasure listening to him sing 'Man,' as well as 'Breeze Off The River.' We'll have to see Scott in more shows! Michael R.J. Campbell was at his inimitable best as Dave Bukatinsky, Jerry's friend. Craig Howard was amusing as former human relations department supervisor, and dancing instructor, Harold Nichols. Stephen Russell was much too young to play 50-year-old Noah Simmons, but imaginative use of hair-white helped.

Every show featuring nekkid people still needs a clotheshorse. That role was played by Mary Young, who sported these amazing, colorful brocaded creations by Lillian Baxter.

The six Main Men of the show had one important advantage, compared to many competing community theater shows - they were all quite good looking. I mean, with or without clothes, they look JUST fabulous - nice pecs, smooth skin, muscular (why do I even choose words like these - perhaps I have ISSUES I'd care not to dwell on?)

One weakness of the show may be its script. Some of the language seemed sort of stilted to me. One example was the bathroom discussion between Georgie (Heather Sheridan) and Pam (Lauren Miller). There were two sentences, or so, that sounded as if an academic had written them. It wasn't an acting problem, it was that these two characters would not have made these particular word choices. Perhaps since the show had a working class English origin, and had to be reworked for an American setting, some difficulties crept into the rewrite.

The popularity of the show hinges on the universality of its message - finding dignity, and happiness, in a world that often denies it. Issues regarding body image are often involved, and the show is among the most direct you'll ever see regarding these issues. Employment, and happiness at work, are very important too. In fact, the principal message of the show is so inherently powerful that I wonder why other people didn't think of it before. Why didn't Rodgers and Hammerstein do "The Full Monty"?

There was a brief technical glitch at the top of the show - the taped music didn't start for a few seconds. Stripping without music can be made to work, if necessary, as long as the fantasy is maintained (need beach balls - big beach balls, and feathers). I remember a friend describing once having seen a bored stripper go through her routine while conversing with a friend about her day - shopping for groceries, cleaning the bathtub, mopping floors. My friend said the dissonant experience of the popped fantasy was quite painful.

In many societies, nakedness is used as a form of protest. For example, formal wear in Sunday church was carefully graduated amongst 17th-Century New England Puritans, with the richest, most gloriously-clothed people in the front, and simple, poorly-clad farmers way in the back. The Quakers, upon finding themselves in this (objectionable) society, would sometimes show up to church stark naked. Even as late as 1967, a village of Ukranian Baptists living in Canada protested their displacement by the construction of a dam by angrily going naked in the streets.

Hippies, yippies, and other countercultural folks sometimes used nakedness as a form of protest - indeed, latter-day flower children, like my friend Kashi, protested ordinances about public nudity in Humboldt as recently as - what? - eight years ago? - by going bare-breasted in the streets of that northern California coastal town. Got her picture in the local paper too (with a strategically-placed banner headline across the photo).

Nakedness is easier in California than in most places (like Buffalo, NY, the setting for "The Full Monty").

The protest urge of nakedness is greatly-sublimated in modern society, but when coupled to commerce (stripping), fame (streaking), or daring celebrity (Superbowl wardrobe malfunctions) sometimes squeaks out anyway. "The Full Monty" is a perfect expression of the impulse to go naked, in order to make a point, about the dignity of work, and the human body.

This is the only show I've heard of that has a gallows-humor musical number, 'Big-Ass Rock,' all about suicide. I found the humor quite disturbing, even upsetting - certainly more upsetting than 'Little Priest' from Sweeney Todd, since we are all more likely to be afflicted by suicide than by gamey 19th-Century meat pies. I thought about yanking down my pants and going naked in protest, standing motionless in grim stolidity in the aisle, but I was afraid that one of RSP's trademark dance routines would erupt, as they often do, in the aisles, and I wasn't going to endanger my Johnson amongst all the flying elbows and kicking feet, just to make Bob Baxter laugh and make all my friends cry.

You know, if you live long enough, you see many things. In a lifetime, you might see a dozen or more lunar eclipses. If you travel, or live in the right place, you might even see a total solar eclipse. But it wasn't until today that I saw Michael R.J. Campbell in a G-String. Big guy (plus little G-String) equals Big Visual Impact! Like I say, if you live long enough, you see many things (now I can die).

"Born To Boogie" - Marc Bolan and T Rex

Rummaging for a fun DVD to watch, I ended up spending a lot of time this weekend repeatedly watching Ringo Starr's remastered movie, "Born To Boogie," featuring Marc Bolan, and his trend-setting band, Tyrannosaurus Rex (later, T Rex). Ringo Starr himself, and Elton John, were also featured. In particular, the movie contains footage of two concerts that were filmed at Wembley Arena, in London, on March 18, 1972.

Although Marc Bolan had a talent for writing catchy rock-and-roll tunes, T Rex ended up pioneering a lot of what might properly be called glam rock, or even some varieties of heavy metal. Marc Bolan was an infectiously-fun and charismatic lead singer - many of the teenage girls shown in the movie were clearly in the thrall of latter-day Beatlemania. He was sort of a Goth - an atypical, happy Goth.

I remember when I first heard of T Rex. In January 1971, for a very, very brief period (less than a week), all-purpose rock-and-roll AM-radio station KQEO in Albuquerque played what had become the top single in Britain, Tyrannosaurus Rex's "Ride A White Swan." Although that song wasn't played in the movie, several others were, including T Rex's most famous song, "Bang A Gong."

I still haven't gotten enough of "Ride A White Swan":

Ride it on out like a bird in the sky ways
Ride it on out like if you were a bird
Fly it all out like an eagle in a sunbeam
Ride it on out like if you were a bird

Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days
Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown

Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong

Catch a bright star and a place it on your fore-head
Say a few spells and baby, there you go
Take a black cat and sit it on your shoulder
And in the morning you'll know all you know, oh

Wear a tall hat like a druid in the old days
Wear a tall hat and a tatooed gown
Ride a white swan like the people of the Beltane
Wear your hair long, babe you can't go wrong

Da-da-di-di-da, da-da-di-di-da ....

DMTC-U in September

This was the first time we ever attempted anything like this: a dinner catered by Cracchiolo's of Woodland (pasta, chicken, & salad), plus a fundraising auction! Roughly 150 people showed up, including many DMTC Season Ticket holders. The evening brought in roughly $15,000, more than expected, in part, because the two Mercedes Benz automobiles donated to the theater (specifically for the auction), met their respective reserve amounts during bidding. The cars thus sold, yielding a cool $5,100 to the theater.

Since June, DMTC had been falling progressively into deeper trouble regarding money; in part, because of large gaps between income-raising shows during the summer, in part because of exorbitant July air-conditioning expenses - the worst heat wave in ten years - but mostly from the sheer, dead weight of so much debt incurred during the building of the theater. We needed an infusion of income beyond what the regular season could be expected to provide.

This fundraiser, then, was ultimately about helping pay for the building we now occupy, and the money we raised Saturday was sufficient to extricate ourselves from our current hole. That's not to say we won't slip into holes again: we'll have to continue to be creative regarding use of the facility to stay ahead of creditors. There are plans afoot (not yet fixed) to stabilize DMTC's debt in the future, so emergencies are fewer. Nevertheless, if Saturday's experience was any clue, we should be able to prevail, no matter what happens. We really do have lots of community support, and that, after all, is more precious than gold.

The committee in charge of the evening was primarily directed by YPT parents: Bonnie, Mary, Jeni, Michael, and Poppy, among others. I missed the organizational meeting on Wednesday, so when I showed up at the theater, I knew little of the plans underway, and focused instead on cleaning bathrooms, and some sweeping.

People started showing up early, though (apparently it is de rigeur for people to show up early at auctions in order to scan the merchandise - who knew?). I was hurriedly sent out to collect tickets. I didn't know where the tickets were, or how to do the job, and for a few minutes, I was very, very confused, but Arthur came over to help, and with more help by Wyatt Floerke and Rachel Fader, we were able to overcome the difficulties. Nevertheless, I never did get changed into my evening clothes, and so I felt a bit raggedy among all the nicely-dressed people.

I suspect I wasn't alone in feeling stressed, though. Since no one had ever done this sort of thing before, many people, YPT teenagers included, often had to improvise solutions to novel problems that arose during the evening (bussing tables, for example: who knew that we had to have a plan for that?)

I think this may have been the first time we ever served wine and beer at DMTC!

The buffet dinner was served (and everyone sat at tables) in front of the theater. Objects for auction were placed on tables in the DMTC lobby. The weather was breezy as the evening cooled off and people meandered among the merchandise. Michael Elfant did an excellent job of MC'ing during the early part of the show, when YPT performers sang snippets of songs. David Nachmanoff (who will be in concert at DMTC on September 9th) set aside his recent bronchitis to sing two rousing folk songs (it will be a great concert next Saturday!) DMTC Main Stage performers like Ryan Adame, Brad Bong, Marguerite Morris, Andy Hyun, and Lenore Sebastian all sung. Later, Steve Isaacson MC'ed during the live bidding.

The bidding posed a few amusing problems. For example, during live bidding, Sarah Rudy bid $400 for one of the Mercedes automobiles, then $2,200, and then Steve pretended to acknowledge a $2,600 bid from her (and she's not even close to being old enough to drive). Her dad felt obliged to warn her about participating!

I noticed that everyone was quite shrewd about their bids - there were no wild excesses, or runaway bidding (dang!) As a result, a lot of people got real steals at the auction.

A very pleasant time was had by all! We'll have to do this more often!

Hurricane John Update

Earlier today, there was a wide gap between forecasts for the fate of Hurricane John.

GFS was saying, "OK, Tropical Storm John is heading TOWARDS Arizona, but alas, the rain won't cross the border."

NOGAPS was saying "be sure to close your windows, and pick up some sand bags at Home Depot."

Now, NOGAPS is beginning to adopt the GFS viewpoint that John won't quite cross the border. Instead, John is forecast to indirectly affect AZ weather through the moisture it releases, but the system itself will stay out of the state. This view has some evidence to support it: John is nearly stalled over the Sea of Cortez.

I continue to hold a stubborn, minority opinion that John may yet have a large influence on AZ weather. I think the mid-latitude system currently over Nebraska will attempt, and fail, to capture John. The attempt will lower pressures over AZ, thereby permitting northward movement of the storm.

We'll see!

California State Fair 2006

Went to the State Fair Friday night with some of the DMTC folks. The place was reassuringly familiar - the same arteriosclerotic disasters on the fair food menu; the same pop star posters on the midway as last year (I thought about throwing a ball to knock milk bottles over, in order to get a Jessica Simpson poster, but decided against it), and the same merchants at work.

This year's emblematic moment was watching a little kid try repeatedly, and failing, to clamber atop a golden metallic statue of the California Bear. It might have been the same kid who tried the same thing last year, and failed then too.

Calamity John

Now it's beginning to look quite alarming. Instead of John staying west of Baja, the current forecasts show John moving into the Gulf of California, the Sea of Cortez, and moving directly into Arizona via the route Nora took several years ago. There are heavy precipitation hits forecast all over Arizona, with a particularly colorful bullseye in the Prescott area.

And soon too! The calamity is forecast to start Monday morning and extend at least through Wednesday.

But before freaking out too soon, the GFS model disagrees with NOGAPS model, and instead keeps John west of Baja, with only a mild breakup forecast.

In general, I trust the NOGAPS model better, because it is a baroclinic model (takes into account temperature gradients), whereas the GFS model is a barotropic model.

I'm going with the alarmist forecast.

John's Not Heavy, He's My Brother

Left: Deborah prepares to keep a wary eye on Hurricane John.





Doug asks for clarification regarding Hurricane John:

Wow, that's "heavy"! Heavy as in "something more than the usual"? Or, heavy as in "this could be life-threatening if you are outdoors"?

So far, it looks like several days of more thunderstorms than usual - like the normal Arizona monsoon, just more of it, and more widespread.

But never trust a disintegrating hurricane, I say. The way in which a hurricane disintegrates can sometimes be very important (remembering the classic disintegration of Hurricane Octave in 1983, and the flooding that followed). We'll just have to keep an eye on it.

Also, that warm-water corridor along the coast is quite narrow, and it will be hard for Mother Nature to maneuver that lumbering hurricane along it. Like a sumo wrestler on a balance beam. So, the forecast is subject to change, and things need not be as dramatic as they look now.

But right now, late next week looks wet.

Meanwhile, the National Hurricane Center polls its models:

THE NORTH-NORTHWEST MOTION SEEN EARLIER HAS CONTINUED... NOW ESTIMATED TO BE 335/7. GUIDANCE HAS SHIFTED CONSIDERABLY TO THE NORTHEAST SINCE SIX HOURS AGO. THE GFS/GFDL/UKMET ARE INDICATING THAT JOHN WILL FIND A BREAK IN THE RIDGE AND RECURVE TOWARD THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES AS A WEAKENING DEPRESSION. THE MINORITY SOLUTION SUGGESTS A LEFTWARD TURN AFTER INTERACTION WITH BAJA CALIFORNIA. THE OFFICIAL FORECAST IS SHIFTED WELL TO THE NORTHEAST OF THE PREVIOUS FORECAST BUT STILL TO THE SOUTH OF THE MODEL CONSENSUS. IF CURRENT TRENDS CONTINUE... THE FORECAST MAY HAVE TO BE MOVED EVEN FARTHER TO THE RIGHT. THIS WOULD INCREASE THE FLOODING THREAT IN THE SOUTHWEST UNITED STATES CONSIDERABLY IF THE GFS/GFDL/UKMET CLUSTER IS CORRECT.

John Prepares Stealth Attack

The latest forecasts suggests Hurricane John won't quite devour Hurricane Kristy, as I mentioned yesterday. Rather (like WWF wrestlers), Kristy will go into orbit around John's south side, and John will grab her arm and slam her towards the Mexican west coast, as John moves north along the west Baja coast.

But John will try to do something unseen since Hurricane Claudette tried it in 2003. There is a narrow corridor of life-sustaining warm water extending part way up the Baja California coast, to Punta Eugenia, and John is forecast to follow that narrow corridor. So, when John finally completely disintegrates, it will be rather close to San Diego, and large amounts of moisture will disperse into Southern California, Arizona, Nevada, and Utah. Heavy rains will fall in the desert mountains, probably starting as early as Tuesday, and continuing through the week!

Washington Post Whitewash

The Washington Post, that bastion of neoconservatism, is trying to spin the recent revelation that Richard Armitage was apparently the source of the Plame identity leak, into excusing away all the rest of the bad behavior of the Bush Administration. Once Plame's name was exposed, there is no question that Karl Rove and others ignored good sense, grabbed Plame's name, and conducted a ferocious media campaign to defame Joe Wilson. Even more importantly, Wilson's main point, that Iraq was not attempting to secure Niger yellowcake uranium, was never discredited. But the Washington Post lies away anyway:

Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials.

That statement is not true. His report did debunk uranium-shopping reports. Whether Wilson's report circulated to every echelon above him, who can say, but who else, then, was Wilson writing for, if not senior administration officials? That's what CIA reports are all about, after all.

Coupling those two phrases together constitutes deliberate deception on the part of the Washington Post. The Editors need to be body-slammed, and hard, for their lie.

Injustice

New Mexico's District 1 Congressional Representative, Republican Heather Wilson, cannot endure a transparent injustice: THIS year, she was NOT placed at the FRONT of the New Mexico State Fair parade.

Sometimes life is just not fair.

"The Full Monty" Opens Tonight

This morning, about 1:30 a.m., I was wandering past the Sierra II Community Center while walking my dog Sparky, when I heard the familiar, keening buzz of a rotary saw. I peeked inside the side stage door of the 24th Street Theater, and, sure enough, everybody was hard at work! Could it be? Yes it is! Tonight is opening night for "The Full Monty"!

Bagheera

I didn't have any success with this week's B3ta's Question of the Week:

As a teenager I went to the Venice Carnival. I made a mask out of a paper plate, got a metal coathanger and bent it into horns around my head and draped a black tshirt over that. At the time I thought I looked really cool, but thinking it over...

Tell us about your own oh-so-cool fashion innovations.

but I liked my entry nevertheless:

I wanted to go to the school Halloween party with my fellow ten-year-olds as Bagheera, the black panther, from the Jungle Book stories, but I couldn't get my parents to help with the costume. So, I cut up lots of brown-paper grocery bags, colored them an oily-black with some crayons, stapled them together over my body, and went.

At the party, some big ox of a dad could not stop pointing and laughing. The wound still hurts.

Mended Rift

I was looking for this week's Weekly World News lead story about a sister ship of HMS Titanic having been discovered frozen in an iceberg, crew and all, but instead found this:

As any high-school science student knows, nature abhors a vacuum. But according to cosmologists, after eons of enmity, "vacuum" and "nature" have made up. In fact, "They're tighter than Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes," renowned astronomer Ivan Habalish told Weekly World News.

Habalish said the bad blood dates back to the creation of the universe.

"For billions of years, vacuum was the only kid on the block. Then Boom! Along comes the Big Bang and suddenly nature is populating the universe with galaxies, stars, and planets.

"Nature didn't help matters by saying, 'Vacuum just sucks all the air out of a room. I abhor it.'"

Fearing For The Future Of Pop Music

Paris Hilton:

Though her movies are "fun", it's music that Hilton says truly fulfils.

"Singing words you've written and touching people with music is the best thing I've ever done out of all my business ventures. It's what I'm most passionate about.

When Hurricanes Collide

Interesting situation developing off the Mexican coast, south of Baja California. Big, bad Hurricane John is preparing to swallow weaker cousin Hurricane Kristy in the next few days.

Collisions of hurricanes are not terribly common, but they do occur. Usually, a big storm catches up to, and incorporates, a smaller, weaker storm.

In February, 2005, after first wrecking American Samoa, strong Cyclone Olaf caught up to Cook-Islands-wrecking, but weaker, Cyclone Nancy, in the South Pacific northeast of Australia.

In 1993, Hurricane Hilary caught up to and devoured Tropical Storm Irwin, also off the Mexican coast.

Mind Your Filipina

E. Let me at him!
M. Put away the garden shears! Violence never does any good!
(shears thrown from the back porch into the yard, contact made, followed by shouts and an angry feint from below towards retaliation).
E. Let me at him!
M. Put down the mop! This doesn't help anything at all!
(mop thrown from the porch, followed by a clatter of metallic impacts as the mop bounces off the air conditioner).
E. Get out of the way! Let me at him!
M. Put down the steak knife! You are not as strong as you think! The last thing we need is to get you hurt and then we have to call the cops!
(carefully step behind E. and relentlessly squeeze, so as to peaceably disarm, and thus have everyone avoid the cutting edge).

Auditions At Step One

Step One Dance and Fitness is hosting auditions at 3 p.m. Sunday (Equity and Non-equity) for a new Broadway musical called "Lost and Found." There are quite few roles, in particular, for African-American singers and dancers. They didn't have extra fliers, so I have no further details. Give Step One a call at 448-7837 for more information.

Bubble, Bubble....

Sturm und drang. Last night, I fired A.: fireworks ensued. Even though the work he did is incomplete, I HAVE to move on from these projects, if only for my own peace of mind (I just want it to end).

Ernesto Makes Florida Landfall

For Tampa, it looks like heavy rainfall tomorrow, with breezy conditions, up to 21 mph at maximum. No chance for wind damage, except from local heavy thunderstorms. And watch for flooding!

South and North Carolina will get Ernesto on Thursday: North Carolina and Virginia on Friday. Looks like lots of rain, particularly in North Carolina.

Ernesto Edges East

The newer forecasts suggest Ernesto will rake central Florida from south-to-north, or eastern Florida, and not bother western Florida so much, which is good for Tampa. Northerly winds will tend to pull drier air from the north past Tampa, hopefully minimizing the rains that can do so much damage.

Nevertheless, there is disagreement regarding how far west the storm will go. Some forecasts suggest Ernesto will barely clip eastern Florida, making landfall in the Ft. Lauderdale area. I tend to discount these forecasts, however. There is a trough in the upper Mississippi Valley that isn't moving rapidly eastwards, and that trough will tend to pull the storm westwards, onto the Florida peninsula itself.

Both the NOGAPS and GFS models are in agreement, oddly enough, and suggest that Ernesto will make its closest approach to Tampa about 9 a.m. Wednesday morning, with the center of the storm passing east of Tampa, squarely halfway between the east and west coasts.

The strength of the storm looks fairly minimal for western Florida - maybe 30 mph winds at most at closest approach to Tampa, making for an experience not much different than Wilma was last year, for Tampa.

There are signs that the Carolinas, particularly North Carolina, will see a major rain event from Ernesto.

West Side Story Rehearsal, DMTC, Sunday Evening

Choreographer Dian Hoel leads Bernardo (David Ott) and Riff (Robert Coverdell) through their knife fight.

Silverado Bric-A-Brac

Left: My room's table, full of corks






Where's Venus when you need her?










Where's Vincent when you need him?











A sunny Sunday morning, looking through a bar and past a wedding reception's buffet lunch, towards the golf course beyond.

Sierra Research's 25th Anniversary Dinner

Left: Silverado Country Club, just northeast of Napa.







There they are!

(Janice's slide show link - no sign in required)

Napa Valley Tour

Left: A pleasant Saturday afternoon, looking across the Napa Valley from the tour bus. They place lots of shiny mylar strips throughout the vineyards to ward off birds. It seems to work: at the Laird Winery, I watched a flock of birds circle around the vineyard, but after a while settle for a grove of palm trees instead.

Given the heft of the wine industry in California, the agricultural land in the Napa Valley is probably some of the most valuable agricultural land in the world. Beauty aside, land use looked tightly-controlled, but I wonder who does the controlling? Passing by the various wineries, there were indications that eccentric Iranian and Canadian wine moguls, among others, were at work in the valley, but surely they can't control everything. I wonder what would happen if you tried to open up a Wal-Mart Super Center in these fields? How long could one survive the wrath of vintners unleashed? Who would lash out hardest?

Tour guide at the Mumm Winery, illustrating the differences between grapes. The Pinot Noir grapes are purple, and small: the green Chardonnay grapes are larger. All the ripe grapes taste great, of course.

Apparently the harvest started a few days ago. According to the tour guide, the winery is very, very busy of late. Nevertheless (and mysteriously), I saw no farm workers. Do they start before sunrise, so they're finished by noon when the tourists arrive? Or was Saturday A Day Without A Mexican?

Reserve Brut, served for guests, at the Mumm Winery. The outside of this hall is very rustic, but the inside is highly-technical. No expense is spared in the Napa Valley! They take their food and wine very, very seriously here!

On the tour, one could look through windows and see where the various highly-technical stages of bottling are carried out. The process of disgorgement was particularly interesting: freezing the used yeast in the bottle's neck and using the carbon dioxide generated from fermentation to pop the icy used-yeast cork out.

They also have a nice photo gallery here at the Mumm Winery, featuring Ansel Adams and Robert Turner, among others.

A map of the Napa Valley viticultural areas. The geography of wine is surprisingly complicated, even in such a small place like the Napa Valley. The grapes grown right at the Mumm Winery are primarily used for Cabernets and Merlots: grapes for other varieties are trucked in from elsewhere in the Valley. For examples, Chardonnays are largely grown in the Los Carneros District, where the Sonoma and Napa Valleys meet, and where the weather is more-overcast in the morning, and thus milder, than on the sunny east side of the Valley.

Scenic vista at the Laird Winery.

At the Laird Winery, our tour guide, Linda, sat at our table. While we were drinking a Cabernet, she said "do you taste that?" We said, "do we taste what?" "That dust-like taste," she said. "That's what is called 'Rutherford Dust.' It is specific to the wines produced from grapes grown in the immediate vicinity of the town of Rutherford. Wines from Yountville, or St. Helena, or Oakville don't have this taste."

Indeed, there was a dust-like taste to the Cabernet, but I think you have to taste quite a few wines from a number of Napa Valley locations just to make sure you have 'Rutherford Dust,' and not something else, like Napa Dust, Davis Dust, or, God forbid, Sacramento Dust.

I remember a fellow, years ago when I was working at Kirtland Air Force Base, who had the ability to taste different Pepsis, and tell where in New Mexico the Pepsis were bottled, based on the taste of the water. We needed that fellow's skills on Saturday.

Chilled storeroom at the Merryvale Winery. Each of these barrels is made of French oak (California oak is apparently too crooked and tastes wrong to be suitable), and costs $1,000 to $1,250 each. The good thing is that the barrels can be reused (provided one doesn't try to go from red to white wine and one is willing to wait a decade, or so, for the barrel to become available).

In the Merryvale Tasting Room, we were treated to the second tasting level (Reserve). There is a description of the wines we tasted here. I really liked the Antigua Dessert Wine (but then, I've always had a sweet tooth).

Georgette ponders giant casks (of amontillado?) in the Merryvale Winery's darkened dining hall. The sumptuous setting looked specifically designed for a Gothic novel.....

Bubble, Bubble, Toil And Trouble

Ernesto Gaining Strength

The new forecasts show Tropical Storm Ernesto moving steadily westward, crossing Cuba, and then more or less stalling in place in the Eastern Gulf of Mexico while gaining power, reaching hurricane strength, and then crossing the Florida coast just east of Pensacola. For an uncomfortably long time, the storm will be uncomfortably close to Tampa, particularly towards the end of next week. Be careful!

Alkaline Martian Magmas And The Gusev Plains

Evidence has accumulated during the Martian Spirit Rover mission that the Gusev Plains are composed of pretty-darn alkaline basaltic lava rocks. Not at all like those crazy-assed nearly-pure andesitic lava rocks that were so common at the 1997 Pathfinder landing site.

Nevertheless, I yearn for the andesite. If I'm not mistaken, andesite implies (or at least suggests) subduction and plate tectonic processes, like on Earth (Andesite is named after the Andes Mountains, where these processes are quite vigorous).

Basalt implies rock derived from the mantle, however. The Gusev Plains are in the ancient Southern Highlands, where no plates have ever thought about moving, whereas the Pathfinder site is close to the transition to the Northern Plains, and who knows whatever might have happened there?

Sedimentary rocks, like where the Opportunity Rover is located, are more provocative.

Poltergeist

Lieberman as Zell Miller, in 2008. It's gonna happen!

Happiness Is....

Crossing the I-80 Yolo Causeway precisely at sunset, and watching a thousand-plus bats funneling out en masse from beneath the highway and heading towards Davis for an evening of food foraging. I worry about those bats - the youngsters were hit pretty hard last month by the heat wave - and so it's good to see them being robust.