Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom by August Wilson Much of the impact of this play draws from the emotional baggage carried around by Kevin Kenerly’s character Levee. His hard-working family’s destruction by violent bigots when Levee was only eight brings menacing emotion into this blues recording session in 1927’s Chicago, 25 years later. […]
Homelessness is not a intrinsically funny topic. In fact, us city dwellers are saturated with homelessness. We get lots of donation appeals from organizations and we get the personalized appeals (aka begging) about five times a block in our neighborhood business districts. Community Voice Mail, our friend's non-profit that is a finalist for Amazon.com's Nonprofit Innovation Award $1 million matching grant, has found a way to make homelessness personal and understandable. Their short flash cartoon is entertaining and preach-free. Please click to see a good way to help homeless people. It's a cute and entertaining work-safe clip. If you can, please give – give a lot, so that Amazon.com will match your gift. And, if you [...]
Ashland, Oregon at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival The Tragical History of Doctor Faustus by Christopher Marlowe The only question being debated among the audience departing after Faustus is whether the evening is disappointing because of the insensitive direction of James Edmonson or whether the performance was doomed as soon as Artistic Director Libby Appel selected this 16th Century version of the classic make-a-bargain-with-the-devil fable. No one argues that Faustus is a great – or even good – theatrical experience. Perhaps only because Faustus is still performed by many different companies, I come down on the blame-the-director side. Moreover, even if it [...]
No posts in two weeks, and the last one concerned work: a sure sign of a pending vacation. The first two weeks of August have gone by in a typical pre-vacation whirl. There's been no time for perspective or slowness. Instead there's been an urgency to finish up tasks, some volunteer, some profitable, some just unintentionally unprofitable. The productive blur was preparation for a mere10-day stint away from the daily routine. Even that disruption in responsibility has been moderated by my notifying clients and volunteer co-committee members of how to reach me while we are out of The City. (Honestly! How important [...]
I finished site for the San Francisco criminal defense attorney . At least version 1.0. Tim is very dedicated, bright, honest, and loves a good fight. I don't want to need a lawyer, but if I ever do, I'd call Tim. He reminds me of the hot-shot civil lawyers the company I used to work for hired to sue a competitor. They were completely involved in the case. The best of the team told me early on that, "We're junk yard dogs. But, we're your junk yard dogs." The civil lawyers wound up creating an air-tight case that left us, well, [...]
We had an agenda when we got up today: see the chocolate exhibit at the Academy of Sciences. This Saturday a special demonstration on mole tamales was advertised at the museum at its temporary housing on Howard Street. Fun time... but only an okay special event in a museum that is offering only a few things to show in its temporary headquarters. The mole excitement was confined to a couple of folding tables off the chocolate hall on the main floor. Two volunteers talked about the peppers, chocolate, and other ingredients that go into a good mole sauce. Every 10 minutes or [...]
Our favorite den of iniquity, Daddy's Bar at 440 Castro, has started an email newsletter. The enticement for handing over your email address is the lure of periodic cocktail coupons to print out. I've signed up -- and I hear the first mailing will be tomorrow and include a post Dore Alley beverage offer. You can sign up directly or else go to their Castro bar website (Flash required) and click on the link there.
To get off the streets, people need jobs and housing. Imagine trying to land a job when your prospective employer cannot call you back or find a place to live when your new landlord cannot phone you with either a question or the go ahead. When you’re homeless you’re also phone-less. That makes it terribly hard to break the cycle. A non-profit organization has a solution. Community voice mail distributes free voice mail services to people with financial need. Their simple idea works. In 2004, despite a difficult national economy, 55% of their clients found jobs and 65% found housing…. [...]
The California Attorney General announced today that paperwork has been filed to initiate the campaign to eliminate existing Domestic Partnerships and outlaw Marriage Equality. Equality California has information on the initiative. The California State's Attorney General's official title and description for the petitions is online in pdf format. Barricades, anyone?
Bill Frist (R-TN) spoke at noon today at the Commonwealth Club. He chose to talk about problems in delivering health care. The Club format limits the speech and question/answer sections together to an hour. Good thing, as this right-wing Presidential wanna be was a yawner. An hour was more than enough. […]