6 Days and Counting (CCPT)

Only 6 days until the opening of Culver City Public Theatre's (CCPT) 2009 season. The Ancient One will be appearing as Grandpa Martin Vanderhof in You Can't Take It With You, a Pulitzer Prize winning comedy by Hart and Kaufman.

The Tech Weekend in Carlson Park went well. We actually completed a complete run through of the play today and it felt good. The Ancient One has really enjoyed working with such a talented cast and feels that the 3 weekend, 6 performance run will be a success. Now we just have our final 4 rehearsals to polish the performance, costumes and (numerous) props and we will be ready for those wonderful audiences that appear in Culver City's Carlson Park every summer.

You Can't Take It With You goes up every Saturday and Sunday at 2:00 p.m. starting July 18 and closing August 2. It will be preceded at noon each performance day by the CCPT Children's Popcorn Theatre production of Aunt Fondeen and the Lost Dutchman Goldmine, another 1 hour play written by Heidi Dotson. Aunt Fondeen. . . will continue for 3 additional weekends (August 8 -23). On those dates it will be followed by Oliver Goldsmith's She Stoops to Conquer.

For additional information, go online and visit ccpt.org. The Ancient One looks forward to seeing at Carlson Park this summer. Be sure to say hello!

It Was the 4th That Was

We had a relaxing, and somewhat different, 4^th of July this year that was a lot of fun, brought back some old memories and led The Ancient One to some thoughts about Independence and Freedom.

Of course, the morning walk took precedence and it was a beautiful day without the "marine layer" that seems to have been hanging over the peninsula for so long. A special treat came about because the city of Palos Verdes Estates moved their 4^th of July Celebration from Malaga Cove to the grounds of Lunada Bay School. This resulted in a panoramic overview along the morning's route. (Unfortunately, the camera was not in hand). While my vantage point was from well above the site and from afar, the crowd and lines of flags could be seen. And voices carried well on the morning air as I listened to a young woman singing My Country Tis of Thee. . . and heard a couple of the orators holding forth.

Later in the day we joined some friends who were staying at the new, recently opened Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes, less than 6 miles from our home. It was pleasant walking the grounds as Jim and Diane gave us the grand tour and then enjoying a wonderful dinner in one of the many restaurants before returning to our own home. It was at Terranea that old memories came flooding back.

This new resort is built on the land that was Marineland many years ago. When Alicia and Seth were pre-school age (she'll be 28 later this month and he's 26) we had season tickets to Marineland. We would often pack a picnic lunch and spend an hour or two there, generally seeing one of the shows (Orky and Corky were the resident performing killer whales) and always stopping by the marine hospital that cared for wounded sea life (especially sea lions), nursed them back to health and returned them to the ocean just below the cliffs. That was the pleasant part of the memories. The less than pleasant part came when the company that owned Sea World in San Diego bought Marineland and then suddenly shut it down, marked by the spiriting away of the many sea animals in the middle of the night. Folks around here have never quite gotten over that bit of corporate chicanery. It's nice to have this sparkling new resort but it isn't the same.

At various points during the day and evening, The Ancient One's thoughts turned to the meaning of the 4^th of July, reflections on independence and freedom and what is happening in the world today. Now I appreciate the flying of the flag, the wearing of lapel pins and all the patriotic speeches as much as anyone. But they are only the out trappings of freedom and patriotism. When I look at the level of intolerance around me in this country it seems that there is a disconnect between the outward symbols of patriotism and what so many of our citizens believe. Some examples.

When referenda are passed that take rights away from a minority of citizens, we hear that it must be honored because we are a democracy based upon majority rule. But those majoritarians forget the other half of the democratic principle that guarantees inalienable rights to everyone, including minorities, regardless of what the majority wants. The drafters of our constitution added a Bill of Rights for that reason although it took a long time for that ideal to start to take hold and it generally has been the judiciary that has had to take on the mantle of defining and protecting minority rights.

The Ancient One is similarly puzzled when our citizens and some political leaders insist that it is our destiny to impose their definition of democracy on other countries and cultures. It seems to me that the heart of America's own fight for independence was to reject having someone else's system of governing imposed on us. Our earliest settlers escaped persecution and came to a land where they could live their lives within their own belief systems. In a line in the play You Can't Take It With You, Grandpa tells his granddaughter, "who says that they're right and we're wrong." I might add that the reverse is equally true, "Who says that we're right and they're wrong."

The essence of America ideally is tolerance, respect for others and their way of life. We believe in freedom. I remember an old saying that "one man's freedom ends when his fist reaches another man's nose." It seems to The Ancient One that this should apply to other countries as well. We no more have the right to impose our system on other nations than they have in trying to impose their systems on us. The ability to live together in a complex world and respect those whose beliefs are different than ours is the essence of patriotism.

Okay, time to get off my soapbox and get back to my daily life.

You Can’t Take It With You at CCPT

The Culver City Public Theatre's (CCPT) 2009 season opens July 18 in Carlson Park. The Ancient One has been in rehearsal in the role of Grandpa In Hart and Kaufman's, You Can't Take it With You, a delightfully raucous comedy first staged on Broadway in 1936.

This story is about a family whose members just want to live their lives in their own way without bothering anybody else. There's Martin Vanderhof (aka Grandpa), his daughter Penny and her husband Paul Sycamore, their daughters' Alice and Essie (who is married to Ed Carmichael). There's also an assortment of other characters, some who live in the house and some who don't.

The Ancient One is doing his best to get "off-book" as the Grandpa and enjoys both the richness of the character and the opportunity to play an age-appropriate character. There aren't a lot of really wonderful curmudgeons out there, but Grandpa certainly is one.

For the moment, the only photo being offered is one of the family taken at a recent rehearsal.

L-R: Grandpa (The Ancient One), Penny (Donna Donnelly), Paul (Clyde Little), Alice (Katrina Straub), Ed (John Glass) and Essie (Hilary Chen)

You Can't Take it With You is one of the funniest American plays ever written and is guaranteed to provide an afternoon of fun and hilarity. The Ancient One will look for friends in the audience. So come and enjoy free theatre this summer in Culver City.

Clearing Brush in Palos Verdes

As The Ancient One reached a turnaround point on one of his walks last week, something looked quite different. He gazed down canyon at the end of a cul-de-sac and was greeted with this view:

What were all those white spots? Aging eyes weren't quite sure but he was sure that some of them were sprouting legs. With the help of the modest zoom feature on his camera and the editing capabilities on the computer, the view became a bit more clear and focused. A "modern" of clearing the brush had come to Palos Verdes in an effort to protect against brush fires.

Yes, those are goats. A herd of them had been transported into the canyon to feed themselves to distraction. They were consuming, and thereby clearing away, the heavy brush. I guess that even with transportation costs, using goats to prevent brush fires is far faster and less expensive than employing human labor.

A modern solution to a potentially serious hazard!

Wall of Fire. . .

Well, not really! Just a wall of bushes with brilliant red blossoms that I have been passing on my daily walk.

Enjoy!

A Reunion and its Consequences

We were in San Diego for 4 days for a Brenner family reunion. Relatives were there from Missouri, Florida and across southern California. Part of the reunion was a celebration of Sy's 87^th birthday. It was a wonderful long weekend even though there was less than an hour of sunshine the whole time.

Like any good family reunion, most of the activity was carried out in the midst of food. Dinner Friday at Harbor House in Seaport Village, Saturday night at the Jamacha Grille in El Cajon, Sunday brunch at our hotel with deli brought in from D.Z. Akin's, and a serendipitous dinner Sunday night at Brian's Eatery in downtown San Diego. Food, food and more food! Talk, talk and more talk! Memories galore. Remembering places and people long forgotten.

Oh, was it fun. Oh, was the food good. Do you think The Ancient One's cardiologist will believe him when he says that he really lost weight over the past three months . . . but then gained 8 pounds just by attending a family reunion? Well, we'll see what happens at this afternoon's appointment.

I mean, how can you go to a family reunion and not overeat? It's part of a full life. You understand, don't you Doctor?

Just Ducky

There wasn't much sunshine yesterday but the ducks frolicking in the pond at Seaport Village in San Diego caught my camera's eye.

Enjoy!

Visitor #9000

The 9000th visitor to The Ancient One stopped by about 11:15 p.m. PDT last night. Not positive who it was but the hit came from the Denver, CO area and was the result of a Google search on the name of a good friend of ours whose son lives in that vicinity.

If that was you David, thanks for being #9000.

Data Lost. . .and Found

This is a true fable in the life of The Ancient One. It is a fable of the age of technology in which we live and how precarious data are.

The story begins a few weeks ago when Donna could not find her Palm Tungsten E2. She looked for it for several days to no avail; it was gone. As it happened, she was not happy with her current cell phone and was eligible for one of those special deal upgrades that the various providers of mobile service offer their loyal customers. So off she went and got a great deal on a Palm Centro. Now she had a combination phone/PDA and could HotSync all her data from her Palm Desktop (which she did).

As often happens, a few days after getting her new phone/PDA, Donna found the lost PDA. It also happens that my Palm Tungsten T/X had gone berserk; while I could HotSync it with the desktop, I couldn't bring up the screens. I would touch the appropriate spot on its little screen and it would act as if I touched another part of the screen. The Ancient One thought that it would be nice to get a Centro too but he is not eligible for a special deal until next January. But Donna said he could have her E2 if that would help. Of course it would. But, whenever he tried to HotSync it with his desktop, it refused to do so. Once an identity has been established on a Palm PDA, you can't just change it even though you can have several identities on the desktop.

Then The Ancient One had a brilliant idea. He would do what is called a "hard reset" on the E2, wiping it clean so he could then set it up in his identity with his data. Fair enough. But he also did a couple of other things that turned out to be less than smart. First, he thought he would try to resurrect his T/X by doing a hard reset on it, which he did. However, while that wiped the PDA clean, it did not solve the problem of the device thinking that it was being poked at distance locations on the screen from where it was being tapped. So he declared the T/X dead and got ready to HotSync his desktop to the E2.

Now here is where it gets really stupid! Before starting the HotSync, The Ancient One looked at the Palm website and found that there was an updated version of the desktop available for downloading. We all know that with technology newer is better. Right? Well, not necessarily. He downloaded the new software and installed it. It easily replaced the earlier version. Then he moved on to carry out the HotSync only to discover that there were no data to move from the desktop to the handheld. ALL THE DATA WERE GONE!

So, for the past week-and-a-half, The Ancient One has been searching for his data. He knew that the address book, datebook, and memo and notepads were somewhere on his computer. But, oh my, they were hidden well and he had nightmares about how long it was going to take to rebuild those data files. Finally, this afternoon he got lucky and found the files. It took a couple of hours but he did figure out how to transfer all those hidden backup files on to the new Palm Desktop and eventually was able to HotSync them with the handheld.

And just in time too! The next doctors' appointments are coming up in the next couple of weeks and The Ancient One really didn't want to call the various offices and try to explain why he had no idea when the appointments were.

As with all good fables, this one had a happy ending and The Ancient One is smiling again. : - D

Election Day?

Today was Election Day in California. . .and hardly anybody noticed! With the exception of a handful of contests to fill vacant offices around the state, the primary purpose for voters was to decide on 6 statewide propositions supported by the Governor and legislative leaders. A "Yes" vote was supposed to address the State's enormous deficit and avoid greater shortfalls and further reductions in state programs.

It was a curious campaign. There were few TV commercials; I guess that was a blessing. The Governor occasionally was seen claiming that layoffs and program reductions would result from a no vote. The Governor voted by emergency absentee ballot before he headed off to Washington, D.C. to attend a press conference in the Rose Garden today. I had trouble finding much information on the election in today's newspapers; I think it was on page 3 of the Los Angeles Times. While I felt no great enthusiasm for the election, I did vote this afternoon and had very little wait in a very short line at the polling place. Last I heard estimated turnout was about 8% of the registered voters in the state.

But my cynicism took hold in this election. I actually believe that when the Governor threatened more layoffs of state workers and more program reductions, he wanted voters to vote know so he could blame what he wanted to do on the ballot box rather than himself and the legislature. When the first news show I turned on tonight did not report on the election results until 15 minutes had passed in the broadcast (an aftershock of last Sunday's earthquake was the lead story), it reflected that "we don't give a damn" attitude that seems to permeate the state. Yes, the elected leaders of the great progressive state of California proposed more tax increases and a lot of gobbledygook and said that they expected people who were already suffering from the economy to buy it. But I think they wanted us to vote no and it appears we did; in the early returns the NO votes exceeded 60%. It seems that one proposition is going to pass. Among other things, that one will stop salary payments to state political leaders when there is a budget deficit (or something like that).

I can hear the Governor and legislative leaders as I write this. When they decimate our schools and needed services, I can hear them saying, "The voters left us no choice." I am saddened by the total lack of leadership in what historically has been a progressive state.

These are the views held tonight by The Ancient One who generally has had a relatively positive view of those who hold political office through his 71+ years on this planet. It is a sad day in California, not because it appears that 5 of the 6 propositions failed but because the absence of leadership led to their being on the ballot in the first place.