"Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" - San Jose Playhouse - May 13, 2023

Wonderful afternoon watching Jared Lee, F. James Raasch, and the rest of the cast of "Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812" at the San Jose Playhouse, with Rachel Rycerz and Ia Rycerz. The show's run has been extended to June 4th. 

 Beside Jared and James, I really liked the performances of some of the other cast members too. I thought Paloma Maia Aisenberg was perfect as Natasha. Annie Hunt was great as Sonya. I really liked Osher Fine as Princess Mary, and admired her dancing skills. Nicholas Rodrigues was already familiar from the Shotgun Players, and he was an excellent Dolokhov.

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We got off to a late start from Sacramento.  I drove.  Rachel's phone kept a handy-dandy running commentary on how we couldn't possibly make it on time, given the heavy Bay Area traffic on a typical Saturday.  Curtain was to be at 2:30 p.m.  Maybe if we raced mightily we'd get there by 2:40 p.m.  

At first we were going to use Interstate 80, but the usual epic Yolo Causeway traffic jam was too thick, so we detoured back on Highway 50 and headed down south on Interstate 5, and crossed over towards San Jose through Livermore.  The phone offered a surprising detour to us to claw back a few minutes by passing through downtown Pleasanton (!), so we went that way.  Slow-moving traffic there and ambling pedestrians carrying bags from the tidy shops clashed mightily with our monomania to claw back seconds of travel time.  Rachel texted ahead to the theater and I understood that they were going to hold curtain for us (!).  We arrived during the opening number!

I know both Jared and James from DMTC days.  Jared was the lead in "Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde" in 2017 and James was Anthony Hope in "Sweeney Todd" in 2015.  Both gentlemen are excellent singers.
 

Jared Lee (Anatole) and F. James Raasch (Old Prince Bolkonsky/Prince Andrey)

Jared, me, and James.

I've never been to the San Jose Playhouse before.  Here is the snack bar.

I like the ceiling here.

Ia and Rachel at the poster for their favorite, Nicholas Rodrigues (Dolokhov), who was also Anatole in the Shotgun Players' production of "Great Comet" in Berkeley earlier this year. 

Jared!

James!

View at the very end of bows.

May The Fourth Be With You

A tale of two kids. One kid had the Star Wars theme playing on infinite loop, and another kid became annoyed by the repeitive music and lashed out by calling it Fart Wars. The 12-year-old in me now wants to know how the Fart Wars saga turned out.

Cleaning The Floor

Spring cleaning time. I've been dusting bookshelves, cleaning wood floors, and putting a polish on them. First time I've ever done the polish part, and I've lived here 28 years.

Gabe's Cats

 

An Afternoon at Skyzone - May 6, 2023

What could be more relaxing than a Saturday afternoon in the company of hundreds of children and teens in rooms filled with dozens of trampolines?

Reminder: April is Procrastination Awareness Month

First Arabesque. The Struggle Is Real

Lara Downes Concert - Mondavi Center - May 5, 2023

Gabe called again and asked if I wanted to see the Lara Downes and John McWhorter concert at the Mondavi Center in Davis.  I said yes.  So, off we went.

Lara Downes is a DJ at a San Francisco radio station (KDFC), and holds a position at Columbia University in New York City.  She is a kind of evangelist for the works of Scott Joplin.  One hundred years ago, there was an impressive movement to bring popular music and classical music together, exemplified by Scott Joplin, the musical "Shuffle Along," and the works of the Gershwins.  One hundred years later, there is an opening for that movement again, and we should take it!

Jasper's Fifth Birthday - April 29. 2023

Sacramento Philharmonic - April 29, 2023

Gabe McAuliffe suggested going to the Sacramento Philharmonic. I was surprised, but willing. To be truthful, I had never seen the Sacramento Philharmonic. So, off we went to SAFE Performing Arts Center. It was nice! Saw Erika from dance making the scene, plus one of my neighbors, who is an usher there.

In The Jungle, The Mighty Jungle...

In the jungle, 

the mighty jungle 

The lion [doesn't] sleep tonight 

In the jungle the quiet jungle 

The lion [doesn't] sleep tonight 

Wee heeheehee weeoh aweem away 

Wee heeheehee weeoh aweem away

Best News Site I've Seen With News From Ukraine

This is great news! May more great news follow!

@leftofcenter2023 - [ ] #славаукраїні🇺🇦🇺🇦🇺🇦 #героямслава #славазсу #українавмоємусерці💙💛 #всебудеукраїна #путінхуйло🔴⚫🇺🇦 #putin #zelenskyy #ukraine #ukrainewar #ukraineinvasion #stopthewar #peace #dictator #oligarch #oligarchy #czar #tsar #tzar #veterans #himars #starstreak #tjavelin #nowar #endgame #ukrainianarmy #tttrussia #nuclear #zaporizhzhya #kherson #kharkiv #mariupol #kyiv #donbas #soldiers #slavaukraine #orcs #donetsk #crimea #odesa #conscription #russianroulette #conscriptions #mobilization #mobilizations #shadowblocked #putinmustpay #putinmustgo #kerchbridge #mooseknuckle #fyp #fypシ #fypage #russiaisaterroristcountry #putinhulio #ukrainematters #imperialism #imperialist #orc #orcs #putinisawarcriminal #sukaputin #getout #war #corruption #corrupt #blayt #kadyrov #prigozhin #kremlin #fsb #putinkhuylo #🇺🇦 #україна #cannonfodder #fodder #putinwarcrimes #domerust #gaslight #gaslighting #toiletterrorists #putinismentallyunstable #terrorussianshavenoballs #mirtholigical #day440 #bakhmut #bakhmut🇺🇦 #bakhmutfront ♬ original sound - Left

Prigozhin Is Nuts

Prigozhin's recent tirade featuring Wagner corpses was bonkers. His loud threats to leave Bakhmut seemed empty, but recent reports suggest his troops are actually withdrawing. Which, if true, is great!

 

Four Delayed Posts Now Posted

These four dramatic posts were originally posted just after New Year's Day, 2023. I was petsitting at Gabe and Eleanor McAuliffe's house, and a few minutes before I arrived for my first visit, howling winds toppled a huge neighbor's tree into their driveway. Gabe asked me to temporarily withdraw the posts, because of sensitive negotiations with the neighbor regarding insurance payments, and the like. That restriction is now lifted. 

In retrospect, it's good the tree fell during this particular windstorm, with winds from the north, and not the windstorm the following week, with winds from the south.  A north-falling tree would have smashed the neighbor's house into smithereens, and maybe killed people!

Which reminds, me, I'm petsitting for Gabe and Eleanor once again this weekend!

The Professionals Arrive

[Originally published 1/3/23, 1:37 a.m.] 

The crew had just arrived (about 9:50 a.m., January 2, 2023) as I entered the house to tend the pets. 

Twenty-five minutes later, when I emerged, the crew had already dispatched with about 2/3 of the tree. My little path vaporized! 

I understand Gabe and Eleanor arrived later in the afternoon. There is damage on the gutter on the front of the garage. I don't know about the roof of the garage - possibly some damage there. 

But considering the possibilities, Gabe and Eleanor escaped harm! Their car and home were unscathed. No one was hurt or killed. 

Here is an obituary of the man who planted the tree, about 1960. By the end, the tree was about 80 feet tall, and a notable landmark along California’s Highway 99:

Adam was born in New Mexico and graduated from Lyda Patterson Institute High School in El Paso, Texas. He joined the U.S. Navy immediately after high school, at the height of WW II. He served in combat in the Pacific Theater and was proud to have been a witness to the surrender of the Japanese from his ship, the USS Pasadena, anchored in Tokyo Bay in 1945.

Making A Little Path

[Originally published 1/3/23, 1:18 a.m.]

Some people are made to change the world. Not me. I adapt to it. Throw down a huge tree in front of me, and I’ll make a little hobbit residence of it. (Home owners will return soon- they may have a different philosophy).

Pet-Sitting Adventures

[Originally published 1/3/23, 1:12 a.m.] 

Happy New Year?

A Huge, Fallen Tree Blocks The Path

[Originally published 1/3/23, 12:49 a.m.]

Well, this is a conundrum! I went to a dog sitting assignment tonight (New Year's Eve, Dec. 31, 2022) at Gabe and Eleanor's house, only to discover an immense tree had fallen and blocked the path! A nearly-impenetrable wall of leaves and wood! 

It took 15 minutes of desperate jungle parkour through the fallen tree canopy in the rain and wind to get through the driveway to the front door. (This is when the ballet training comes in handy - keeping my balance under duress.)

Inside, complacent pets wanted food and attention.

Shoki Ramen is Open

This restaurant went through terrible times. They remodeled the old Trails Restaurant, opened, and immediately had a kitchen fire. Then there was Covid. But now, it finally looks like they are open:

Shoki Ramen House built a Sacramento cult following in the 2010s, then fell on hard times around the end of the decade. Now it’s back, and already sold out through its opening weekend.

Shoki is reopening its Land Park restaurant this weekend, five years after a fire forced its closure, owners Yasushi and Kathy Ueyama announced on social media Thursday night.

The Japanese restaurant initially opened in Curtis Park in 2008, expanded to the R Street Corridor in 2011 and accrued a devoted following for its tan tan men and rustic setting. The Curtis Park location was then closed when Shoki moved to at 2530 21st St., formerly home to longtime barbecue restaurant Trails. 

Two years later, that building was destroyed in a fire. It’s been fenced off ever since, and Shoki’s R Street Corridor restaurant closed in 2021. But the Ueyamas kept their ramen shop alive via a Shoki food truck while they refurbished the Land Park restaurant.

Motorcycle Accident - April 24, 2023

Jasper and I had to take a detour on our walk because of this incident:

23-110965 (Vehicle Collision - Investigation): W St / 24th St at 1529 hours. 

Officers responded to a report of a vehicle collision involving a motorcycle. At the scene, officers located the motorcyclist, a male adult, who sustained serious injuries. Officers performed life saving measures, but the individual was declared deceased on-scene. The driver of the vehicle involved in the collision remained on-scene. Major Collision Investigations Unit Detectives responded to process the scene.

Tucker Carlson Out

Hooray! Still, conservatives are cryptic these days, so it's unclear why Carlson got canned. Conservatives themselves seem befuddled, but they may understand better than liberals can:

The night before Fox announced Tucker was out, “60 Minutes” aired a segment debunking “Patriot Purge’s” central claim that Ray Epps, a Trump supporter at the Jan. 6 rally, was an FBI asset deployed with a MAGA hat to goad the protesters into storming the Capitol so that the deep state could purge our finest patriots before going after the rest of them — i.e., you, dear viewer. 

According to this newspaper, that “60 Minutes” segment was a concern for Rupert Murdoch too. Apparently, the $787-million settlement in the Dominion lawsuit wasn’t a factor (which explains why worse offenders on that score remain at Fox). But the two things are not unrelated. 

Much has been written about the damage Donald Trump has done to the right, less has been written about how the right had become so damaged as to be ripe for him to take over. An important part of that story is how the right became seduced by Saul Alinsky, the leftist radical, whose politics and tactics were once condemned by conservatives, me included. But many of my fellow conservatives became convinced the left “always wins” and they do so by using “Alinskyite tactics.” Over time, the condemnations turned to admiration, then envy, and, finally, emulation. 

Some of Alinsky’s rules for radicals include: “Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it,” and “Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. It is almost impossible to counterattack ridicule. Also, it infuriates the opposition, who then react to your advantage.” This got translated into “Own the libs.” 

This was the soundtrack of Trump’s presidency, for which “Tucker Carlson Tonight” served as a kind of liner notes. Trump’s move was to claim his weaknesses were strengths — his phone calls to the Ukrainian president and to Georgia election officials were “perfect,” passing a basic test for cognitive impairment proved he was genius, etc. 

But it was Carlson who took Trump’s biggest political sin — his complicity in Jan. 6 — and spun that into a tale of right-wing virtue and left-wing villainy. That was the point of “Patriot Purge,” — to go beyond merely and meekly “respecting the audience” to outright pandering by declaring that Trump’s most deplorable supporters were actually the right’s most righteous victims. 

Carlson turned tactics — ridicule, nastiness, flipping the script — into an ideology unto itself. His departure from Fox will not make the network more acceptable to its haters and harshest critics. But Fox without Tucker means the worst elements on the right have lost a megaphone.

The Trouble With Guns

This time, from Farmington, NM.  

You get into these terrible situations where cops feel they have no option but to kill you. My sister once nearly got into a shootout with cops. Guns heighten the danger of misunderstandings.  That's among the reasons I have no guns:

The neighborhood was dark when police arrived, and dispatch gave officers both the correct house number – 5308 – as well as a photo of the correct house, the attorneys said. 

But the officers went to the wrong house – 5305 – and knocked on the door. “Their announcement was not loud,” the Dotson family attorneys said. 

After no one answered the door, an officer asked dispatch to call the house to talk with the residents – but “no phone is heard ringing; no sound is heard at all,” the attorneys said. 

The police bodycam footage shows an officer walking away from the front porch when Dotson, armed with a gun, opens the door. 

“There is no announcement of ‘POLICE’ despite more than ample time. And that is obviously crucial,” his family’s attorneys said in the statement. “Wrong address. Late at night. The Dotson’s never called the police.” 

The officers’ encounter with Dotson happened quickly, and it can be difficult to decipher everything that happened in those few seconds. 

According to Dotson’s family attorneys, a “freeze frame of the tape shows Robbie holding the gun, and not pointing it at the officers. Rather, the gun is clearly pointed down at the ground.”

Just a Reminder of Why It's Important to Stop Russian Aggression in Ukraine.

Russia does not respect the existence of other countries in Eastern Europe, or the rights of those peoples to separate existences, and Putin has emphasized the illegitimacy of these other regimes. So, Ukraine is first - Poland, the Baltic nations, and the Scandinavians must follow. There is no logical stopping point either. Since the Russians were part of the alliance that defeated Napoleon, a good stopping place might be France. There's a lot of territory between Moscow and Paris. For a lasting peace, Russia must be conclusively stopped; here, now, in Ukraine.

A Russian lady discusses what is wrong with the world. Basically, it was all Russian and should be given back to Russia. pic.twitter.com/ObMmr0rZoR

— Anton Gerashchenko (@Gerashchenko_en) April 23, 2023

Vivian Lee - The Side Door - April 22, 2023

Vivian Lee sings at The Side Door. With her is Brenden Lowe on piano, Jeff Minnieweather on drums, and Buca Necak on bass.

Rachel buys a CD from Vivian at intermission.

I don't know the emcee very well, but admire what he's done with the space at 4th Ave. and Franklin.  He's having a lot of fun.

The emcee is also an accountant.

LaToya's Thursday Dancehall Power Up Group Celebrates Shannon's Birthday