More MFL Pix

Left: Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Left: "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?"

Left: Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins.

Left: "The Rain In Spain" Henry Higgins (Steve Isaacson) refines his matador skills with Colonel Pickering (Herb Schultz) and Eliza Doolittle (Lauren Miller).

Left: Tea at Ascot.

Left: Ascot (front row, left to right, Stacey Sheehaan, Marisa Casillas, Herb Shultz, and Scott Sablan.

Left: Trevor Hoffman as Alfred P. Doolittle and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle (Eva Chu in the foreground).

Left: Trevor Hoffman as Alfred P. Doolittle and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle (with an obscured Michael McElroy as Freddy Eynsford-Hill).

Left: "Get Me To The Church On Time"

Left: Jenny Parks as Mrs. Higgins and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

"Clerks" And "Waiting"

Byron at Subway asked "have you ever done any customer service in your life, like being a waiter, even when you were younger?" I answered no, except maybe now: as "My Fair Lady" Stage Manager, I prepare some finger cakes to be eaten on-stage, and wash dishes, as well as wash Eliza's marbles. Byron is slightly-familiar with Lauren Miller (who is playing Eliza Doolittle), having seen the DMTC "Titanic" video, where she played second-class striver Alice Beane, opposite my Edgar Beane, and he sometimes asks "How's your wife doing? Does she still like to dance with billionaires?" I generally answer something like "Yup. I can't control her worth beans."

Anyway, Byron said "You have GOT to watch these videos: they are classic!" So, I watched Kevin Smith's 1994 "Clerks" (the Miramax collector edition tenth anniversary 'X' reissue, with the kind of loving detail I usually associate with Humphrey Bogart classics, or "Gone With The Wind"):

Its just another day for Dante Hicks, until his boss calls him into work at the Quickstop on his day off. With a hockey game at 2, and his girlfriend still hacking him about going to back to school. Dante begins to get into a bigger frenzy when he learns his ex-girlfriend, Caitlin, is getting married. With his always late accomplice Randall strolling in to work at the video store, Dante is left with no choice but to bend the rules a little with work, customers, and most of all his love life. Can he get away with it all? (Plot summary by Bryanne Marks).

Plus, I also watched Waiting:

Young employees at Shenaniganz restaurant collectively stave off boredom and adulthood with their antics.

Well, I do have to say I found some of the crude humor somewhat off-putting: to my mind, the crude humor interferes with the real comic gold to be found in these particular settings. After all, millions of people have done customer service jobs and strongly empathize with the various situations one can find oneself in. "Clerks" ("the vulgar thinking-man's film") is better than "Waiting", but even "Clerks" suffers from amateurish acting. "Clerks" grunge motif works better than the slick suburban setting of "Waiting" for conveying the desperation that lies right at the surface, like a ravenous crocodile, or some kind of angst-ridden land shark. Nevertheless, some beg to differ:

I hated (HATED!) being a waitress, but this movie is so hilarious and so ballsy that it almost makes me want to go back to the summer of 1999 to work one more shift at TGI Fridays. Waiting is the best, most accurate, most honest, and most riotously funny movie ever made about the service industry. Here's how I see it – the world is divided into two groups of people: those who have waited tables and those who haven't. Those who have never worked a day of their lives in a restaurant may find this movie amusing, but they'll think it's too absurd to be real, and they'll probably never give a second thought to this movie ever again.

But those of you who have felt the pain, degradation, and humiliation of waiting tables will p**s your pants laughing at how PERFECT this movie is. First-time writer/director Rob McKittrick has created a dead-on depiction of 24 hours in the restaurant biz. The movie opens at a late-night party with lots of underage drinking, smoking, and sex. Then we see the wait staff hung-over at work the next day. The restaurant they all work at is called "Shenanigans," but it looks an awful lot like the TGI Fridays I worked at.

One thing that struck me, however, is how much "Clerks" lead character Dante Hicks reminds me of Byron at Subway. He looks like him - he even sounds like him. It's no surprise that Byron identifies with Dante, and that unprompted, Subway customers often tell Byron the stock line from "Clerks": "you're not even supposed to be here today!"

I liked the way QuickStop customers in "Clerks" often uttered exactly the same lines over and over again: "Are you open today?" then "I wanna buy some cigarettes." I liked the gum salesman masquerading as a tobacco prohibitionist:

You're spending what? Twenty, thirty dollars a week on cigarettes... Fifty-three dollars. Would you pay someone that much money every week to kill you? Because that's what you're doing now, by paying for the so-called privilege to smoke!... It's that kind of mentality that allows this cancer-producing industry to thrive. Of course we're all going to die someday, but do we have to pay for it? Do we actually have to throw hard-earned dollars on a counter and say, "Please, please, Mr. Merchant of Death, sir; please sell me something that will give me bad breath, stink up my clothes, and fry my lungs... Of course it's not that easy to quit; not when you have people like this mindless cretin so happy and willing to sell you nails for your coffin... Now he's going to launch into his rap about how he's just doing his job; following orders. Friends, let me tell you about another bunch of hate mongers that were just following orders; they were called Nazis, and they practically wiped a nation of people from the Earth... just like cigarettes are doing now! Cigarette smoking is the new Holocaust, and those that partake in the practice of smoking or selling the wares that promote it are the Nazis of the Nineties! He doesn't care how many people die from it! He smiles as you pay for your cancer sticks and says, "Have a nice day."

And I liked the inadvertent sale of cigarettes to a four-year-old girl. And video-store clerk, Randal, and his philosophizing to Dante:

You sound like an asshole! Jesus, nobody twisted your arm to be here. You're here of your own volition. You like to think the weight of the world rests on your shoulder. Like this place would fall apart if Dante wasn't here. Jesus, you overcompensate for having what's basically a monkey's job. You push fucking buttons. Anybody can just waltz in here and do our jobs. You-You're so obsessed with making it seem so much more epic, so much more important than it really is. Christ, you work in a convenience store, Dante! And badly, I might add! I work in a shitty video store, badly as well. You know, that guy Jay's got it right, man. He has no delusions about what he does. Us, we like to make ourselves seem so much more important than the people that come in here to buy a paper, or, god forbid, cigarettes. We look down on them as if we're so advanced. Well, if we're so fucking advanced, what are we doing working here?

I especially liked the booklet enclosed with "Clerks" X edition, featuring Director Kevin Smith's reminiscences about youthful years working in, and getting trapped in a suffocating embrace by, a New Jersey QuickStop - the ultimate source of his career as a movie director.

Next, Byron will loan me "Clerks II" and a documentary featuring Kevin Smith.

Paying-The-Bills Blues

There is constant interplay between community musical theaters like DMTC, and the various royalty companies that hold the rights and own the materials from which theaters spin fantasies into reality. Scripts are constantly being shipped for inspection, lost musical books are being returned as others are being rented, royalties are being paid, contracts are being signed and fees assessed, and thousands of dollars are changing hands. Thus, it is little surprise that what money DMTC sends them sometimes doesn't quite match what they require, and that I, in my capacity as DMTC Treasurer, end up with a past-due bill for $57.31 that requires payment. The past-due notice reads, in part:

Our goal is to work with you to reconcile your account, however, understand, that failure to respond to this norice may result in your account being put on credit hold and we may require pre-payment for future orders.

This isn't even grammatical! Norice? Norice? What is this, a Charlie Chan audition?

The norice continues:

Note: Please don't be confused by this statement - your original invoice showed our New York address (which is still correct), however, for this account, we would appreciate it if you would send all remittace to our Los Angeles office....

Remittances! Remittances! Spell it properly! OK, I promise I won't be confused by this norice, provided it is written in proper English.

(I must be slowly turning into Henry Higgins....)

Meet The New Neighbor

Last night, about 1:30 a.m., as Sparky and returned home from our nightly walk, I heard some unexpected scratching from the landscaping surrounding a house about half a block from where I live. Dimly, I realized there must be an animal in there somewhere, but what kind of animal? It couldn't be a bird, because they chirp, if they make any sound at all. Cats are virtually silent, and dogs would come bounding out of the bushes upon seeing Sparky, so neither seemed likely candidates. Possums sometimes make noise, but their noise is inadvertent, and I suppose it could be from raccoons, but I see them rarely. So, what kind of animal was in there?

Suddenly, I saw it, waddling away across 22nd Street. Alerted to my presence, it turned towards me and pointed its tail straight into the air, an unmistakable warning. Omigod, it's a black-and-white striped skunk! Here, at the edge of Curtis Park! Sparky, who had been trailing, investigating scents, never saw it. Reassured that we weren't in pursuit, the skunk turned and vanished into the inky dark along Sloat Way.

Now I realize skunks do get into the city: sometimes you smell them around the I-5/Highway 50 interchange, but at least at that location, the river is nearby, and there is a bit of land to support them. It must be harder here, closer to the urban core of the city. Next to polar bears, skunks have the least fear of humans - for good reason!

Sometimes it's a blessing that Sparky isn't a younger dog.....

News From New York

Turned on the radio this morning, and Rush was chortling in full, blood-thirsty humor, but since I tuned in late, I couldn't quite figure out what was up.

Apparently, Elliot is in some unexpected trouble.

"My Fair Lady" Saturday Night

Left: "Ascot". In white, Crystal Low and Jenny Parks.

Left: Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Left: "Wouldn't It Be Loverly?" Street urchin Marisa Casillas catches up on the day's Tottenham Court gossip with Crystal Low and Laura Woodruff. Behind the flower cart, Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Left: Tea at Ascot.

Left: The Embassy Ball. Foreground, Stacey Sheehan and Julie Kilpatrick.

Left: Success, after the Embassy Ball.

Left: Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Left: "Get Me To The Church On Time"

Left: "Get Me To The Church On Time"

Left: Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Who Is The Alpha Dog?

Left: Canines like Sparky tend to identify the Alpha Dog as the one who towers over them. Here, I am the Alpha Dog.

Left: Every day when I go to work, Sparky stands on the back porch, and I stand below him. Here , Sparky is the Alpha Dog. Sparky really likes this practice - a lot!

So, What's New At Arden Fair Mall?

Left: A bumping soundtrack (Nelly Furtado's "Maneater") and an empty catwalk at Macy's practically beg to be used!


Even though the shopping mall has an infinite variety of first-rate goods, and even though there is an infinite variety of people there, somehow the mall experience never changes much - it's always reassuringly familiar. So, what's new the mall?

Well, this is new - an empty catwalk! What is going on? Turned out, I was an hour early for "Perfect Prom 2008," an event co-sponsored by Seventeen Magazine and Macy's Stores.

Left: This is new - eye candy for all your friends!

Over at Abercrombie and Fitch, a male model poses with all-comers.

Left: Everyone join in!

Good For Bjork

It's funny, I thought Independence Day was aimed at Americans trying to escape the Dominion of Bush. Greenland and the Faroe Islands? WTF?:

China pledged Friday to impose tougher curbs on foreign artists after pop star Bjork sang in support of Tibetan independence in Shanghai, warning similar actions could lead to them being blacklisted.

"We will further tighten controls on foreign artists performing in China in order to prevent similar cases from happening in the future," the Ministry of Culture said in a statement on its website.

"We shall never tolerate any attempt to separate Tibet from China and will no longer welcome any artists who deliberately do this."

A video on the Internet site Youtube shows the Icelandic singer closing out her concert in China's financial hub last Sunday with the song: "Declare Independence", during which she yelled "Tibet" several times.

..."Some artist deliberately turned a commercial show into a political performance, which not only broke Chinese law, but also hurt Chinese audiences' feelings," the statement said.

"What Bjork said in Shanghai has aroused strong resentment among the general public in China."

..."If Bjork continued to behave like that in future, we may consider never allowing her to perform in China," the spokeswoman told AFP.

Bjork's support of the cause of Tibetan independence is not new -- she performed at a Free Tibet concert in San Francisco in 1996.

The song "Declare Independence", however, was originally written for Greenland and the Faroe Islands both of which belong to Denmark.

Sigh. Missed The Mark Again

Every week, along with hundreds of others, I like to submit answers to B3ta's "Question of the Week" in the hope of ending up on their "Best" page at the end of the week. It's a hard process though. B3ta caters mostly to idle British schoolboys, and my writing is just too milquetoast for their tastes: not enough carnage, humiliation, drinking, and juvenile humor. This week I thought I had a sure winner. But I missed once again. Maybe if I stopped repeating the same stories over and over, it would help my chances.

Here is my answer to this week's question:

Have you ever seen a dead body?

How did you feel?
Upset? Traumatised? Relieved? Like poking it with a stick?

which I answer with an (unfortunately) true tale, plus some of the reader's comments:

The Night Of Sex And Death

New Year's Eve 1995 was notable. I was visiting my family in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA, and took the opportunity to visit a strip club called the 'Ice House'. It was a frolicsome good time, but very frustrating after several hours of persistent sexual titillation at the hands of buxom maidens. In search of simpler pleasures, I left before midnight and went back to my family's home and walked my dog Sparky instead.

We were walking along a dark boulevard about 11:45 p.m., when suddenly a racing engine thundered in the distance. A pickup truck inexplicably careened off the street, rolled out-of-control across a no-man's-land, and then plunged into an empty ditch. Sparky and I ran to see if we could help.

Arriving first at the scene, I scrambled into the dark ditch, opened the driver's-side door of the pickup truck, looked inside, and saw - nothing at all. No one appeared to be in the vehicle. Where did the driver go? I could hear a distinct mechanical gurgling that I attributed to coolant escaping from the shattered truck's radiator. I decided to check the passenger side of the vehicle.

Different story over there. What happened was, the driver, who had fallen asleep at the wheel (as I learned later, apparently after just one New Year's Eve beer), had gone halfway through the windshield upon the collision, and had fallen backwards, catching his throat on the broken glass and slashing him from ear to ear. He had then fallen under the passenger-side glove compartment (which is why I hadn't seen him at first). The gurgling sound I heard was his last bloody breath. And there was blood EVERYWHERE!

The victim was labeled by the local news media as the first Albuquerque fatality of 1995, but I knew he was the last Albuquerque fatality of 1994. Poor guy - age 18, he had been married just one week. Life is unfair. No sexual frustration had he, I'm sure, but then he was cursed with a low tolerance for alcohol. Laid, but not alive, whereas I am the opposite.
Marc Valdez

Nicely told
All the people going on about "what a crap QOTW this is" should read answers like this. Yes it's not funny (whoever said a QOTW answer has to be funny?), but it's well written and moving.

Well done!
MrC - a camel named Simon

hmm
I read that as "wanked my dog Spanky instead"...
scoshi

Ok,
yeah, so did I!
MrC - a camel named Simon

Umm, no. Life is not unfair.
This was not fate cruelly snatching away life. This was an idiot who didn't wear his seatbelt, and was clearly in no fit state to drive, who paid for it dearly.
Musuko

Musoko
Oh do be quiet
theweapon

ooooo
I have loads of family in Albq.


that's all I've got....sorry
flirting with badgers

Tolerance
The low tolerance for alcohol was a bit of a tradgedy, the low tolerance for seatbelts doesn't get any sympathy.
Grey_Ghost

Is Airborne Useless?

I know a lot of people swear by it, but I've never tried it:

The vial promised salvation. Take this potion, it offered, and your ills will be remedied.

I did. And it worked! I did not get sick. And from then on, I was hooked. At the first hint of sickness, I would reach for this magical drink. They -- and by they, I mean Oprah, a fervent proselytizer -- called it Airborne, and everyone used it: A couple years ago, sales of the stuff reached $100 million a year.

But was I tricked? I did not get sick. But was it the Airborne that kept me healthy? Had I not taken it, would I have gotten better anyway? On further uses, I found the potion less effective. I'd drink some at the first rumor of illness. Half the time I'd get sick, half the time I wouldn't. So was Airborne working, or wasn't it?

It wasn't. In 2006, ABC News discovered that the "clinical study" that the company had been touting as proof that its product cured colds was not really very clinical, nor much of a study.

"There was no clinic, no scientists and no doctors," ABC reported. "The man who ran things said he had lots of clinical trial experience. He added that he had a degree from Indiana University, but the school says he never graduated."

That report sparked a class-action lawsuit. Now, while not admitting any wrongdoing, the company has agreed to settle the lawsuit, and it will offer Airborne customers a refund on sales, paying out $23 million.

...Since the ABC report, the company has laid off claims that its product "cures" colds. Now the word "cold" appears nowhere on its packaging, and the company's CEO, Elise Donahue, told ABC that "We don't know if Airborne is a ... cure for the common cold." Rather, she said, the product "helps your body build a healthy immune system."

...There's an attractive creation myth to Airborne. The product was created by a schoolteacher who was "constantly exposed to germs in her classroom." This story carries no medical proof, but it's got charm: Doctors have labored for years to cure the cold, but trust a get-down-to-business schoolteacher to figure it out.

Airborne can't hurt you, either. So maybe it doesn't always work -- you take it, and still get sick. What about the times it does work? Sure, maybe the effect is only placebo. But doesn't that still count?

If it only makes you feel as if you're feeling better, you're still feeling better.

And that's the bottom line. When you're feeling down, you want to take stuff that feels good for you. Airborne feels good for you (it tastes pretty good for you, too).

Informed about the settlement, one customer told ABC, "What's so deceiving about it? ... It's vitamins and stuff like that that's supposed to make you feel better and make sure you don't get sick, right?"

Most Interesting "Vanity Fair" Article

George W. Bush's efforts to interfere with politics in the Gaza Strip, without getting anyone on board who knew anything about that hornet's nest - even the Israelis - were bound to backfire. Hamas wasn't stupid. They realized immediately what was going on, and reacted. Evil people make up Hamas, but I wish our leaders had half their smarts. Khalid Jaberi, a commander with Fatah’s al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades commented as follows:

Jaberi pauses. He spent the night before our interview awake and in hiding, fearful of Israeli air strikes. “You know,” he says, “since the takeover, we’ve been trying to enter the brains of Bush and Rice, to figure out their mentality. We can only conclude that having Hamas in control serves their overall strategy, because their policy was so crazy otherwise.”

Condoleeza Rice looks clueless:

Today, we receive official notice that as secretary of state, Rice set out to do for diplomacy what she did for national security. Vanity Fair has the documentary scoop on a scheme concoted by Rice and Iran-Contra convict Elliot Abrams to provoke a civil war in Palestine between the military wings of Hamas, the democratically elected ruling party much loathed by the Bush administration, and Fatah, the electoral losers who were loathed by the administration when in power but gained respectability by virtue of losing.

In true Bush-like fashion, and with the president's blessing, Rice and Abrams not only set out to provoke a war but backed the losing side. They had no idea Hamas would win the Palestinian general election, which they had pressured Palestinian Authority president Mahmoud Abbas to call despite his concerns that Hamas was better organized and more popular than his Fatah movement, and once Hamas did win, they completely underestimated Hamas's popularity while overestimating Fatah's strength. And of course they selected as the vehicle of their dreams a man, Gaza warlord and long-time Fatah enforcer Muhammad Dahlan, whom the president and other senior administration officials had met and assessed as a man they could do business with.

The lone named Bush administration source in the story contemporary to the events under discussion is former Cheney aide David Wurmser, a staunch neoconservative who was central to the administration's efforts to promote the invasion of Iraq. Ironically, after two decades of advocating various forms of violence and subversion as a solution to the region's problems, Wurmser complained to writer David Rose of a "stunning disconnect between the president’s call for Middle East democracy" and the Rice-Abrams scheme.

Here's what Rice had to say about the Hamas electoral sweep. “I’ve asked why nobody saw it coming. I don’t know anyone who wasn’t caught off guard by Hamas’s strong showing.” But news accounts from the months before the election describe Fatah leader Mahmoud Abbas's anxiety over his party's fading popularity, a concern that led him to postpone the elections once and which proved to be well-founded. Had she read the newspapers, she would have known. And Dahlan, the administration's point man for the Fatah coup, says he was telling everyone he knew in the administration that Fatah wasn't ready for elections.

Rice's statement about the Hamas victory is spookily reminiscent of her claim that no one could have predicted that terrorists would use hijacked airliners as weapons, even though US intelligence agencies had predicted exactly that. (And score one for pop culture, too: the pilot episode of X-Files spinoff The Lone Gunmen, which aired six months before 911 in March of 2001, featured a terrorist plot to fly a hijacked airliner into the World Trade Center. Clearly, administration officials don't watch enough TV.)

Rice was also warned that despite its evident superiority in numbers, Fatah's security forces were splintered, poorly motivated and highly unpopular, but despite years of accumulating evidence from the US experience with arming and training similarly dysfunctional forces in Iraq, she chose to believe that the US proxy in Palestine could carry the day.

Australian Summer Recap

The rains helped, but they weren't enough - at least, not yet:

DAM levels across the country have risen in the past year, but the Murray Basin remains in the grip of a big dry, and almost 70 per cent of Australia's farmland is still drought-declared.

...Melbourne's summer rainfall was 110 per cent of the long-term average, but stream flows were just 58 per cent of the long-term average. "The old rainfall-runoff relationship has broken down," WSA chief executive Ross Young said. "This demonstrates how dry catchments are."

...Southeast Queensland has the harshest water restrictions, but there is "a strong community focus on water conservation. The target of 140 litres per person per day has been beaten often." Mr Young said.

Average daily summer water use in Melbourne during the 1990s was 1631 litres, compared with 1092 litres a day at the end of last month.

Melbourne last year had the lowest per capita water consumption since 1934, while Sydney consumed the same amount it did in 1974, despite having 1.2 million more residents.

Mr Young said Brisbane's water storages had "been in freefall since the turn of the century". But 300mm of rain over summer, which is about average, had boosted the city's dams from 20.17 per cent of capacity to 38.84 per cent.

...At the end of last month, storages were at 100 per cent in Darwin, 66.4 per cent in Sydney and 61 per cent in Hobart. Melbourne storages were at 35.5per cent and Perth's at 34.8per cent.

The picture was mixed in the regions, with storages at only 9.5per cent capacity in Ballarat, northwest of Melbourne, and 12.9per cent in Toowoomba, west of Brisbane, while the Goulburn catchment, southwest of Sydney, is 65.6 per cent full. Brisbane has the harshest water restrictions in Australia, while Hobart and Darwin have none.

It was sort of an odd summer:

Sydney residents and tourists are cursing La Nina as the harbor city says goodbye to the summer that wasn't.

While the La Nina weather pattern is delivering rain to farmers after the worst drought in a century, it's cutting profits for cafe owners, travel agents and insurers. Insurance Australia Group Ltd., the nation's largest home insurer, last week posted a sixth straight profit decline after hail storms cost it A$105 million ($97 million). The yearly `Symphony in the Park,' which usually attracts 80,000 people, had 700 this year as the orchestra played behind a tarpaulin during a downpour.

...After four years of water restrictions, Sydney saw about 50 percent more rain than usual this summer, according to Mike De Salis, a spokesman at Australia's Bureau of Meteorology.

No day topped 31 degrees celsius (88 degrees fahrenheit) for the first time since 1956. Average daily sunshine totaled 6.7 hours, an hour less than normal and the lowest since 1991-92. The average maximum temperature was 25.2, the coolest since 1996-97.

``Suddenly we get one cool, wet summer and everyone's complaining,'' said De Salis.

Matthew Hassan, an economist at Westpac Banking Corp., said the soggy summer has weighed on Sydney's $285 billion economy.

``The endless rain is certainly adding to the sense of gloom,'' Hassan said. Employment and housing data show Sydney is already struggling with rising interest rates and gasoline prices.

...Dam levels rose to 64.4 percent at the end of February from 37.1 percent a year ago. Rain fall reached 439 millimeters this summer, compared with an average of 298 millimeters.

``We're not whinging about the rain,'' said Ben Fargaher, chief executive officer of the National Farmers' Federation in Canberra, Australia's capital city. ``Good living weather is not good farming weather.''

Fun With Images

Anyone can play!

D&D's Creator Passes On

Left: Image by Tribs, at B3ta.

Wow, Dungeons & Dragons dates from as late as 1974? I remember my group of high school friends playing it by 1975 (although by that time I was exasperated with board games and miniature golf, and the like, and wanted to hang out with chicks, and stuff, instead). One friend became a first-class Dungeon Master and hopscotched around the country running games in the 80's before getting religion, becoming a pharmacist, and consigning D&D to Satan's warehouse of sinful, youthful pasttimes:

Gary Gygax, who co-created the fantasy game Dungeons & Dragons and helped start the role-playing phenomenon, died Tuesday morning at his home in Lake Geneva. He was 69.

...Gygax and Dave Arneson developed Dungeons & Dragons in 1974 using medieval characters and mythical creatures. The game known for its oddly shaped dice became a hit, particularly among teenage boys, and eventually was turned into video games, books and movies.

..."It really meant a lot to him to hear from people from over the years about how he helped them become a doctor, a lawyer, a policeman, what he gave them," Gail Gygax said. "He really enjoyed that."

Dungeons & Dragons players create fictional characters and carry out their adventures with the help of complicated rules. The quintessential geek pastime, it spawned a wealth of copycat games and later inspired a whole genre of computer games that's still growing in popularity.

...Gygax also was a prolific writer and wrote dozens of fantasy books, including the Greyhawk series of adventure novels.

Las Vegas Hooters Gets The Hook

Seemed like a good idea at the time, but apparently not for the long haul:

Hooters Hotel will be rebranded into a yet-to-be named boutique hotel following a $130 million redevelopment of the property that could begin later this year, the investment group purchasing the hotel said Monday.

Leading one critic to ponder:

Today the business world learns an important lesson about the limitations of tits: They can sell cars, beer, deodorant — and even cynically overmarketed chicken wings that taste like chalkboard erasers covered in Taco Bell hot sauce — just fine, but as far as luring men-children to the numby vortex of video poker … not so much.

Anger Management - Failed Again

Anger management should require some role-playing, in order to avoid this:

According to the criminal complaint, Boudin was waiting at a bus stop in August when he harassed a 59-year-old woman. Witnesses say he yelled "Why don't you show me some respect?" at the woman.

The complaint says when she took out her cell to call police, he punched her in the face. When a 63-year-old man tried to stop him, Boudin hit him with a blue folder. Then he ran, dropping the folder.

Police were able to track him down using the papers inside, which included his name and his anger management homework.

A Martian Avalanche

The Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter caught a Martian avalanche, in action. How amazing is that? The place changes so slowly, it's almost impossible to see such a dramatic change actually happen. But here it is!



Here is the MRO Website caption:

Amazingly, this image has captured at least four Martian avalanches, or debris falls, in action. It was taken on February 19, 2008, by the High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment (HiRISE) camera on NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter.

The image to the left shows the context of where these avalanches occurred, with white boxes indicating the locations of the more detailed image portions shown to the right. All images are false color. Material, likely including fine-grained ice and dust and possibly including large blocks, has detached from a towering cliff and cascaded to the gentler slopes below. The occurrence of the avalanches is spectacularly revealed by the accompanying clouds of fine material that continue to settle out of the air. The largest cloud (upper images) traces the path of the debris as it fell down the slope, hit the lower slope, and continues downhill, forming a billowing cloud front. This cloud is about 180 meters (590 feet) across and extends about 190 meters (625 feet) from the base of the steep cliff. Shadows to the lower left of each cloud illustrate further that these are three dimensional features hanging in the air in front of the cliff face, and not markings on the ground. Sunlight is from the upper right.

Cameras orbiting Mars have taken thousands of images that have enabled scientists to put together pieces of Mars' geologic history. However, most of them reveal landscapes that haven't changed much in millions of years. Some images taken at different times of year do show seasonal changes from one image to the next, however, it is extremely rare to catch such a dramatic event in action. (Another, unrelated, active process that has been captured by Mars cameras are dust devils.) Observing currently active processes is often a useful tool in unlocking puzzles of the past for scientists studying the Earth. Working from primarily still images, it is harder for scientists studying Mars to rely on this tool. The HiRISE image of avalanching debris is a very rare opportunity to directly do so.

The scarp in this image is on the edge of the dome of layered deposits centered on Mars' north pole. From top to bottom this impressive cliff is over 700 meters (2300 feet) tall and reaches slopes over 60 degrees. The top part of the scarp, to the left of the images, is still covered with bright (white) carbon dioxide frost which is disappearing from the polar regions as spring progresses. The upper mid-toned (pinkish-brownish) section is composed of layers (difficult to see here) that are mostly ice with varying amounts of dust. The darkest deposits below form more gentle slopes, less than 20 degrees, and are mainly composed of two materials: mid-toned layers, possibly ice-rich, that form small shelves, and more mobile, wide-spread, sand-sized dark material. The wavy forms on the flatter areas to the right are dunes.

The upper, steepest section, which appears highly fractured due to blocks pulling away from the wall, is the likely source zone for the falls. The precise trigger mechanism is not yet known, although the disappearance of the carbon dioxide frost, the expansion and contraction of the ice in response to temperature differences, a nearby Mars-quake or meteorite impact, and vibrations caused by the first fall in the area, are all possible contributors.

By comparing images taken before the fall (such as HiRISE image PSP_007140_2640) and after the fall, we may be able to see where material has disappeared from the steep scarp and where it has appeared on the gentler slopes below, possibly as larger blocks, diffuse streaks, or other debris deposits. By imaging this scarp throughout the polar summer, we may be able to determine how much material falls over a given time period. These observations would help determine how much, and at what rate, ice is being eroded from the cliff. Understanding the processes and rates of erosion will help determine how the polar landscape has evolved, and help reveal how volatiles, such as water and carbon dioxide ices and gases, move around Mars.

The precise composition of the ice-dust mixture making up layers in the upper, steepest section of scarp is not known. However, detailed measurements of the volume of material removed, the configuration of the source area, and the steepness of the slope can be used to estimate physical properties of the material that may relate to composition.

The complete image, HiRISE PSP_007338_2640, is centered at 83.7 degrees latitude, 235.8 degrees east longitude. The image was taken at a local Mars time of 1:05 PM and the scene is illuminated from the west with a solar incidence angle of 70 degrees, thus the sun was about 20 degrees above the horizon. At a solar longitude of 34.0 degrees, the season on Mars is northern spring.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, a division of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena, manages the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter for NASA's Science Mission Directorate, Washington. Lockheed Martin Space Systems, Denver, is the prime contractor for the project and built the spacecraft. The High Resolution Imaging Science Experiment is operated by the University of Arizona, Tucson, and the instrument was built by Ball Aerospace and Technology Corp., Boulder, Colo.

Image Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/University of Arizona

Oh, The Australian Press Is Cruel

And not even correct. Hillary has so many delegates already she could fight all the way to the convention even if she never wins another primary. But the failure to win primaries is a bad sign, and will be duly noted by the delegates to the Democratic convention in Denver this summer.

High Tech Soul Trailer USA

“Imagine a city designed for four million people that less than one-million people occupy now.”
- Jeff Mills

Review located here:
http://www.realdetroitweekly.com/article_1290.shtml

Oh this is interesting - a historically-oriented DVD about Techno music! Right up both my alleys! I purchased it the instant I saw it.

Interesting DVD, with surprisingly little Techno music on the soundtrack. As the review states:

“Techno music was created in Detroit in the mid- to late-‘80s and is credited to Juan Atkins, Derrick May and Kevin Saunderson,” Barbara Deyo of Touch Salon and Bold Face Media states at the beginning of the film. Bredow continues from there, laying down the historical facts exploring the creation of techno music by going directly to the pioneers of the revolution themselves....

As a class, DJs seem to be somewhat laconic, and project a tough urban coolness that is somewhat off-putting. So, the most voluble person on the DVD is actually an academic, a white, sort-of George-Will-lookalike Wayne State University English professor named Jerry Herron, whose gripping and soaring rhetoric has to substitute for the more-subdued testaments of the DJs themselves. It is fascinating hearing about growing up in the empty heart of once-populous Detroit, and also hearing how these (mostly black) DJs are serious celebrities in Europe and elsewhere overseas, but are ignored at home, and even confused with drug dealers at times. And also hearing about how they have personality frictions with other folks (Moby kind of creeps them out a bit).

One fun DVD!

How Can You Have Any Pudding If You Don't Eat Your Aluminum?

Last night, I was chewing my way through a sandwich in a downtown Davis eatery when I tried to bite through something hard that I thought might be a piece of bone. Wrong: it was a piece of aluminum. I presented the piece of shrapnel to the eatery staff, shrugged my shoulders, and said: "These things happen."

"The Little Mermaid" - DMTC's Young Performers' Theatre

Left: Mermaids. This is hazardous, since I don't know everyone here, but I'm guessing, left to right: Madelyn Robinson, Rebekah Haworth, Nora Unkel, Melanie Platt, Hope Raymond, and Moriah Haworth.

Left: Mermaids, led by Mermaid Marina (Hope Raymond), and various sea creatures dance.

Left: Marina the Mermaid (Hope Raymond) discovers a marooned sailor (Chris Petersen).

Left: Sarah Rudy as Crustacea.

Left: Facilia (Jennie Knapp), and friend.

Left: Sometimes it gets really busy at the bottom of the sea.

Left: Mermaid dancing ensemble. Left to right, Kiyo Nishiyama, Maria Martinelli, McKinley Carlisle, and Jennie Knapp.

Left: Marina (Hope Ratmond), and Toby, the Official Seal (William Chan).

Left: Mermaids dance.

Left: Dylan (Andrew Lampinen) reveals his true identity.

"My Fair Lady" - Second Weekend

Left: Herb Shultz as Colonel Pickering and Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins.

Left: "Get Me To The Church On Time."

Left: "Get Me To The Church On Time" (and Bruce Warren).

Left: Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins celebrates his triumph at the Embassy Ball.

Left: Trevor Hoffman as Alfred P. Doolittle in "Get Me To The Church On Time."

















Left: Jenny Parks as Mrs. Higgins and Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle.

Below: Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle and Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins.


Left: Lauren Miller as Eliza Doolittle and Steve Isaacson as Henry Higgins.

Sarah, Plain And Tall - Woodland Opera House

Left: Helen Dahlberg after Saturday afternoon's performance.

Comely Helen was perfectly-suited to be Sarah. Not only is she sufficiently tall (6 foot, 1 inch), but with appropriately-severe choices in clothing and hairstyle, could be made to look plain.

A brief synopsis from the Woodland Opera House:

Set in the early 1900s, this play by Joseph Robinette from the Newberry Award winning novel by Patricia MacLachlan brings to life the charming, heartwarming story of a Kansas farmer, Jacob Witting, (Dan Beard) a widower with two children, Anna (Amanda Young) and Caleb (Abby Miles). When Jacob places an ad in the newspapers seeking a wife he receives a reply from Sarah Wheaton (Helen Dahlberg) from Maine. Sarah will visit the family for a month to see how things work out: “I will come by train. I will wear a yellow bonnet. I am plain and tall.” Narrated by the adult Anna (Rebecca Baland) the story follows the tumultuous month when Sarah and the Wittings came to know each other. The joys and challenges of everyday life are depicted in this tender and touching tale.

Also in the cast are; Wendy Harris, Olivia Roberts, Taelen Robertson, Bobby Grainger, Janey Pintar, Lisa Curtis, Frank Hickox, and Cynthia Drumbor. The show is directed by Jason Hammond and Cris Medina is stage manager.

The production plays Fridays at 7:30, Saturday February 23 and Saturday March 8 at 7:30, Saturday March 1 and Saturday March 8 at 2:00 and Sundays at 2:00.

Main floor tickets are $10-adults, $6-17 and under. For reservations call 530-666-9617.

Post-show view of set.

Nice-looking, well-made set. The fly featuring the old-time photos, meant to represent the Wheaton house in Maine (not pictured) was my favorite.
Bobby Grainger played William Wheaton, Sarah's brother, and Janey Pintar (last seen as Tintinabula in 'Forum' at Magic Circle) played Meg Wheaton, Sarah's sister-in-law. Janey was bright and bubbly. It was interesting watching Bobby playing a more-subdued kind of role. I liked Bobby's biographical blurb in the program, which gave the most succinct and accurate reason I've ever seen to be an actor:

Bobby Grainger (William Wheaton) is happy to be back at his 3rd WOH production having previously graced our stage as the shockingly misguided Giuseppe Zangara in Assassins and last year's adorable and endearing Lefou in WOH's Beauty and the Beast. This once again proving Bobby's gratefulness to theatre for finding a fun and acceptable place for his multiple personality disorder.

Also in the show, recently from DMTC, was Lisa Curtis playing Effie and Wayne Raymond as Matthew Nordstrom. Wayne sings marvellously, yet plays the part of farmer better than anyone in Davis. I was surprised how well Abby Miles did playing a boy (Caleb Witting). In fact, during the show, I had no idea she was a girl. Dan Beard played an affable Jacob Witting, and Rebecca Baland and Amanda Young make an excellent tag team playing Anna Witting.

Jason Hammond is a fine director, and makes sure his cast understands the slow, subtle rhythms of this show.

Post-show view of set.

The audience could figure out most of the set, since it was fairly-literal (the windmill silhouette, for example, represented a windmill), but they were baffled by the free-floating polygon. To me, it looked almost like abstract Chinese symbolism for 'one house', but it was odd to have just one example of abstraction. Usually you either have lots of abstract symbols in a show, or none at all. The audience in my row began having whimsical fun with the polygon:

"What is that thing there? Is it a roof"
"I don't know what that thing is."
"It's not often you see a thing like that."
"You're right - they've never had a thing like that here before."

The musical theater crowd, of course, knows that Kansas roofs are never meant to be permanent structures, but are meant to be blown away by ferocious windstorms. The "thing" was a nice symbol, whatever it was.

Milky-White Rain

Lots of concern about the milky-white rain that fell in southwestern New Mexico on January 7th.

Pure water in equilibrium with CO2 should have a pH about 5.6. Most rain in remote areas, containing organic acids, would be a bit more acid - pH ~ 5. This stuff apparently had a pH of 7.9: very alkaline!

So far, speculation on a cause centers on white dust kicked up from Willcox Playa in southeastern Arizona, and that seems quite likely as an explanation to me.

Kingston Slams Obama for Flag Pin w/o Wearing One Himself

Doof! Doof! Doof! Doof! Doof!

It's The Potash

I feel GOOD! In fact, I feel AWESOME!

Yesterday I took the "Get Fit Jam" aerobics class over at Pepper Von's Step One studio, and even though I hadn't worked out that much recently, I sailed through class. Instead of feeling haggard at the end, like I sometimes do (and like the 20-somethings sometimes admit to feeling too) I was still feeling up.

But why?

Last year, my doctor informed me that my blood's potassium level was low as a consequence of taking a blood pressure control drug. Apparently the diuretic impact of the drug also strips salts from the system, including potassium salts (plus, I drink so much diet cola that that probably helps strip potassium from the blood as well). So, for the last year, I've been taking a potassium supplement.

I got a blood test in January, and the doctor called and said my potassium level was still low. So, I needed to take a second capsule of potassium chloride (KCl; aka potash, the sort of stuff they mine over there in Carlsbad, NM).

OK, so like, whatever!

Yesterday, for the first time, I took a second dose of the potash, and apparently for the first time in a long time, I finally reached the level of potassium I should have had all along....

And I'm too sexy for my hat
Too sexy for my hat
what do you think about that?

Economic Musings

For some reason, I find myself in total agreement with the Bush Administration today. Maybe it's this thing I hear about whereby one gets more conservative as one gets older. Or maybe even a stopped clock is right twice a day:

WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration is hardening its opposition to the chorus of Democrats, bankers, economists and consumer advocates calling for a big-money government rescue program for struggling homeowners.

In an interview yesterday, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson branded many of the aid proposals circulating in Washington as "bailouts" for reckless lenders, investors and speculators, rather than measures that would provide meaningful relief to deserving, but cash-strapped, mortgage borrowers.

Mr. Paulson's comments came amid signs that the nation's housing market is getting worse, not better. Indeed, at a House hearing yesterday, Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke kept the door open to further interest-rate cuts to boost the economy, even as he warned that inflation pressures have intensified in recent weeks.

...Both Democratic presidential hopefuls have criticized President Bush, saying he exacerbated the housing market's woes by tolerating overly aggressive lending practices. Sen. Barack Obama (D., Ill.) has advocated the creation of a $10 billion fund to help borrowers avoid foreclosure or buy first homes, while Sen. Hillary Clinton (D., N.Y.) has proposed a 90-day moratorium on foreclosures and a five-year interest-rate freeze on adjustable-rate mortgages.

Several major banks, including Credit Suisse Group, have floated plans that would expand an existing federal program run by the Federal Housing Administration to extend government insurance to thousands of troubled loans. Former Fed Vice Chairman Alan Blinder has proposed reviving a Depression-era agency to buy up troubled mortgages and refinance them at affordable rates.

Even the Office of Thrift Supervision, an independent agency within Treasury, is developing a plan that would make it easier for banks and thrifts to refinance loans for homeowners whose houses are worth less than the amount they owe.

Rep. Frank's plan would provide about $10 billion in loans and grants to help states buy foreclosed homes, plus a similar sum to allow the FHA to guarantee new, more-affordable mortgages for homeowners on the brink of losing their houses. Democratic lawmakers, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and Sen. Chris Dodd of Connecticut, chairman of the Banking Committee, have legislative remedies in mind, as well.

I just look at this and think the market has to find a bottom, even if it's a deep, deep bottom, and it's better for everyone if the process proceeds quickly. Real estate markets take forever to adjust anyway (it took five years to find a bottom after the 1990 crash in California real estate values, for example). Lost homeowners have to stop trying to hang on, admit that they are screwed, surrender in the face of bone-crushing destiny, throw the kids and the dog in the minivan, and move on. Hang on, and they'll have to do the same thing anyway, just three years (and numerous dysfunctions) later.

The housing foreclosure crisis is likely to moderate this year, which is good. Just move on, just move on....

Left: Five-year Dow Jones Industrial average performance. NASDAQ and the S&P500 indices show similar behavior.

Actually, I'm surprised how well the stock market is doing, but then Bernanke et al. are doing their best to keep it propped up.



Left: The value of the Dollar in Euros, for the last five years.

The inevitable downside, of course, is that the value of the dollar is cratering. It's not possible for the Fed to simultaneously lower interest rates, keep inflation at bay, and support the dollar. Of course, it puts the Administration in an awkward spot. For example, Bush stated recently:

"I believe that our economy has got the fundamentals in place for us to ... grow and continue growing, more robustly hopefully than we're growing now," he said. "So we're still for a strong dollar."

Who believes this stuff? Certainly no one on Wall Street. The Europeans would be too embarrassed to lie so readily. The Administration made its decision to keep economic activity high, let the dollar tank, and let loose the hounds of inflation. Case closed. Just move on, just move on....


Left: The value of the Dollar in Yuan, for the last five years. Ten percent of the Chinese holdings in dollars, completely vaporized! Advice to the Chinese: Diversify your holdings! Make the Americans pay in Euros!




It looks like we're segueing into a major, major increase in gasoline prices! Over $102/bbl oil today! $102 isn't even on this chart, it's so high. Amazing! It isn't even the summer driving season yet. It's like we're back in the 1970's again! Stagflation, here we come!

The cause of stagflation in the 70's was the deficit spending hangover for the Vietnam War (inflation) coupled with high oil prices resulting from OPEC's manipulations (stagnation).

The cause of stagflation in the 00's was the deficit spending hangover for the Iraq War (inflation) coupled with high oil prices resulting from higher Asian (mostly Chinese) demand, refining capacity that hasn't kept pace with consumption, and difficulty finding new oil reserves (stagnation).

By August, I bet we start seeing gasoline at $4.50/ gallon at the pump.

Biological Ice Nucleators

I remember when Jeff S. told me how effective leaf litter is as an ice nucleator back in 1990, so the author of this study exaggerates when he says all of this has been ignored before. Nevertheless, it's interesting stuff!

Biological organisms play a significant role in the formation of rain and snow, according to a study released Thursday by the journal Science.

...Scientists have long known that the ice crystals in clouds which become rain or snow need to cling to some kind of particle, called ice nucleators, in order to form in temperatures above minus 40 degrees Celsius.

But they did not realize, until now, that the most active particles involved in this process are living ones, Christner said.

"Every snow and ice sample we've looked at, we found biological ice nucleators," he said in a telephone interview.

"Here's a component that has been completely ignored to date."

Biological ice nucleators were first discovered about 40 years ago by researchers trying to determine why some plants were damaged by frost and others were not.

They discovered that the plants which froze were covered in bacterial plant pathogens which are able to capture moisture in the air and turn it into ice at temperatures as warm as minus two Celsius.

Mineral ice nucleators like dust and soot can only capture and freeze the moisture at temperatures below minus about 10 degrees Celsius.

"It means that when cloud temperatures are in the range where inorganic matter are not active, these biological ice nucleators are active," Christner said.

Christner and his team have not yet determined how much precipitation is formed with these organisms.

But they found a stronger presence in snow collected from Montana and France than that collected in northern Canada and Antarctica.

Davis Enterprise Review Out

Ouch! Oh well, that's live theatre!:

Not entirely loverly

By David Burmester Enterprise drama critic February 27, 2008 13:18


Left: Prof. Henry Higgins (Steve Isaacson, left), Eliza Doolittle (Lauren Miller) and Col. Pickering (Herb Schultz) build to a triumphant finale during one of the many much-loved songs for which 'My Fair Lady' has remained famous. (Greg Rihl/Enterprise photo)


'My Fair Lady,' adapted from George Bernard Shaw's 'Pygmalion' by the celebrated team of Alan Jay Lerner and Frederick Loewe, opened to rave reviews in New York on March 15, 1956.

The following summer, the national company played a one-month engagement at San Francisco's magnificent War Memorial Opera House. That production marked my first encounter with this great musical.

Fifty years and change later, I found myself Saturday evening at the Davis Musical Theatre Company's Hoblit Performing Arts Center right here in Davis, for yet another production of this classic musical. Of course, the Hoblit is not the Opera House, and DMTC is not a professional touring company.

Still, the current production of 'My Fair Lady' has enough good moments and enjoyable performances to make it a satisfactory evening of theater.

Trevor Hoffman is especially impressive as Alfred Doolittle. Hoffman, a newcomer to the DMTC stage, absolutely nails the Cockney accent in his two songs, 'With a Little Bit of Luck' and 'Get Me to the Church on Time.' In addition to a solid acting performance, Hoffman is far and away the most engaging dancer on the stage.

Lauren Miller shines as Alfred's daughter, Eliza. The tall, lanky Miller makes the difficult transition from ragamuffin flower girl to 'princess' completely believable. She not only captures the linguistic shift but shows us Eliza's dawning realization of her own worth: a commendable acting feat. Miller's best moment is her tea table conversation at Ascot, during which she details the colorful demise of a favorite aunt.

Danette Vassar is in top form as Mrs. Pearce, Higgins' housekeeper. It's a pleasure to see this DMTC regular give a solid performance in an important supporting role. Laura Woodruff also is worth mentioning; she stands out in several small ensemble roles.

Steve Isaacson is a puzzling choice, however, in the pivotal lead role of Henry Higgins. Isaacson is the driving force at DMTC, and he has given a number of memorable performances in character roles.

He's a great second banana, but he's not Henry Higgins.

Higgins, the precise practitioner of upper-class English, is driven by his pride in the spoken language, a character trait essential to the plot. Unfortunately, Isaacson's attempts at a British accent are uneven at best. Moreover, while Higgins is something of a jerk, he's a pleasant one, but Isaacson makes him mean and small-spirited.

I came to the theater expecting to see Isaacson as Alfred Doolittle; it's intriguing to speculate on how different the show might have been, had Hoffman played Higgins and Isaacson taken on the Cockney dustman.

Director/choreographer Jan Isaacson occasionally misses the mark. One can only wonder why Herb K. Schultz was allowed to turn Col. Hugh Pickering into a timid wimp, when the role calls for a strong and rather avuncular figure: a foil for the edgy Higgins.

Even more troubling is the blocking of large group scenes: Ensemble actors stand about in clumps, watching the action rather than being a part of it ... waiting, it would seem, for the moment when they break into song.

At times, the 20-member ensemble utterly overwhelms the acting space.

Isaacson's choreography has a military feel, as though the objective is to move from Point A to Point B while keeping time to the music.

The one staging innovation comes during 'Ascot Gavotte.' Here, in stiff little groups, the ensemble shuffles rapidly from place to place on the stage, with drill-team precision. What should have been a burlesque of the stately elegance of British high society instead becomes, sadly, something just a little bit silly.

On the other hand, the singing ensemble, under the direction of Jonathan Rothman, is one of the best I've seen at DMTC. Jean Henderson's costumes are beautiful; Eliza's gown for the Embassy Ball is lovely, and the black and white costumes for the Ascot races are truly spectacular.

Ultimately, DMTC is community theater and a labor of love. The performers' enormous energy offsets the artistic rough spots, and the enthusiasm of this company's loyal audience makes 'My Fair Lady' - with Shaw's classic story and the great Lerner and Loewe score - a show that many theater-goers surely will appreciate.

Lyrics To "The Tale Of How"

The Black Heart Gang published lyrics here, but listening to the song, I realized the singers adjusted the words to suit rhythm and meter. So, I tried to update the lyrics to what the singers actually seemed to sing:

Deep in the Indian Ocean,
all scary and black,
lives an old octopus,
with a tree in his back.

And from inside this tree,
all Piranhas appear,
and they sing soothing songs,
and are kind and sincere.

They’re not at all stupid,
They’re not very bright,
They’re never quite wrong,
And they’re never quite right.

They’re never asleep,
they’re never awake,
They all dress like weirdoes,
make no mistake

They're frightfully happy
except when they’re dead,
See Otto the monster
needs to get fed.

A tentacle from nowhere,
could give one a fright!
Stealing Piranhas,
a thief in the night.

They sing soothing songs,
but he never hears,
for shells and the kelp,
that have grown in his ears.

Otto is deaf,
Otto means eight,
Otto means death,
To the dodos he ate.

"The future is red"
said Crown-for-a-head,
"they have to migrate,
or they’ll soon all be dead!"

So they got in the ocean,
to swim far away.
The water turned red,
On that terrible day.

For Otto the monster,
how hideous the slaughter,
he picked them like fruit,
from that inky black water

There are not many left,
But a handful, a few,
one of these had a vision,
and knew what to do.

Filled paper with ink.
And bottles with paper.
An ocean of bottles,
S.O.S ing their saviors.

But no one came,
they were sad, and alone,
they seemed to be stranded,
on this Judas called home.

The quiet warm ocean,
of terror and typhoon,
the far-away voices
that sing to the moon.

Lo! Treacherous house,
many more disappeared,
Till a visit from a mouse,
named Eddy the Engineer.

He appeared from the west,
on a bunch of bananas,
he puffed out his chest,
and addressed the Piranhas.

"You the Piranhas?
Does Otto want to eat you?
my name is Eddy,
and it’s a pleasure to meet you."

"I’ve read all your letters,
I know all the wrongs,
caused by Otto the monster,
Who is deaf to your songs"

"I’ll give you my all,
I’ll do what I can,
I'll need palm trees and syrup,
to start my plan."

Huge sticky pots,
cutting palms at the stem,
they built a great structure,
resembling them.

They got a wet net,
and they sang the lullabies,
they caught all these songs,
And placed them inside.

They sneaked to the shore,
set it free in the tide.
They all hid in trees,
to watch and to hide.

Now Otto is stalking
the palm-syrup snack.
He took the bait!
He fell in the trap!

The bait disappeared,
with a growl and a snap.
Otto first yawned,
And then took a nap.

So the island is sleeping,
and still is today.
Eddy had done it!
Our friends got away!

They loaded their ship,
With their mother the tree.
The wind in their sails,
and the wide open sea.

-Markus Wormstorm as Rooster Bear

Ghost Brothers of Darkland County

A new musical:

ATLANTA — Creating a Broadway musical can be scary enough. Even more so when it's script is penned by horror master Stephen King.

King, who has written numerous best-selling novels, has written the script for "Ghost Brothers of Darkland County," with music by John Mellencamp.

The play will open at Atlanta's Alliance Theatre in April 2009, with the object of getting it ready for a Broadway run.

The Alliance, which announced the project on Tuesday, described it as "a sultry Southern gothic mystery with a blues-tinged, guitar-driven score."

The story is set in the fictional town of Lake Belle Reve, Miss., and centers on the deaths in 1957 of two brothers and a young girl and the legend that grows out of the tragedy.

Peter Askin, whose New York credits include "Hedwig and the Angry Inch," will direct.

The idea for the story was Mellencamp's, and came from a story he heard years ago in his hometown of Seymour, Ind., said Alliance artistic director Susan Booth.