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United States Attorney Benjamin B. Wagner, along with Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives Special Agent in Charge Stephen Herkins and Internal Revenue Service Special Agent in Charge Scott O'Briant announced that Mark C. Anderson, 61, of Sausalito, pleaded guilty to 19 charges in an indictment for the Oct. 12, 2005, arson of the Wines Central warehouse in Vallejo.
The charges included one count of arson, four counts of interstate transportation of fraudulently obtained property, nine counts of mail fraud, one count of use of a fictitious name, and four counts of tax evasion stemming from the.
The case is the product of an extensive investigation by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, the Internal Revenue Service, the Vallejo Police Department, the Vallejo Fire Department and the Sausalito Police Department.
According to Assistant United States Attorney R. Steven Lapham, who is prosecuting the case, the trial was set to commence tomorrow with Deputy Attorney General Peter Williams assisting.
Anderson admitted that he set fire to the Wines Central warehouse in Vallejo on Oct. 12, 2005, and that he had been embezzling wine from his clients for many years.
In pleading guilty to the tax evasion counts Anderson also admitted that he failed to report over $800,000 in income from the sale of the embezzled wine and therefore evaded over $290,000 in taxes.
Anderson operated a business called Sausalito Cellars in which he charged wine collectors a fee for storing their wine in environmentally controlled conditions.
As part of his business, he rented approximately 2,500 square feet of space at Wines Central, a 240,000 square foot warehouse located in Vallejo, California. Most of Wines Central was dedicated to the storage of premium wine for Napa Valley wineries.
Approximately 95 Napa Valley wineries stored wine at Wines Central. Some of these wineries lost entire vintages and, in some cases, their entire inventory.
More than six million bottles of wine were destroyed in the fire, authorities reported.
After accepting the guilty plea, Judge Karlton scheduled the matter for judgment and sentencing on Jan. 26, 2010.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, the United States has agreed to recommend a sentence of 188 months.
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“If I could just find me a white boy that can sang cullurd.” – Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records.
“If I could find a white man who had the negro sound and the negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.” – Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records.
Please join me for an excursion back through time to America, circa 1950, give or take a few.
You’ve of course noticed the two quotes that preface this piece, both attributed to Sam Phillips, founder of Sun Records. I present them here for your perusal because the quote seems to have evolved over the years.
The case I make refers to the first version which I read (probably in Jet magazine) when I was a legal teenager, compared with, or contrasted to, the second version which is seemingly how it is remembered today.
I trust that the coarser, first version is probably how it was originally uttered by Phillips, a native of Florence, Alabama. His father owned a cotton farm and “employed” African-American workers.
Working on a cotton farm in the deep south in the 1940s and 50s is just a polite way of saying sharecropping, which might have been a cut above indentured servitude. Actually, though, indentured servants could work there way out of bondage. Sharecroppers stayed in debt to the owner of the plantation from the womb to the tomb.
In sum, Phillips probably used the term “cullurd,” might have used “negro” or denigrated down the scale to nigra or (gasp!) worse. The second quote sounds like it was written by Rod Serling.
Sam Phillips became attracted to blues music through listening to the “workers” on his father’s farm. When he opened Memphis Recording Service and Sun Records in 1950, he made a living recording exclusively African American musicians.
The list is impressive. Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, a band led by Ike Turner released what is considered by some to be the first Rock & Roll record, “Delta 88.” Between 1950 and 1954 Phillips recorded James Cotton, Rufus Thomas, Roscoe Gordon, Little Milton and Bobby Blue Bland. Phillips also recorded B.B. King and Howlin’ Wolf.
Phillips claimed Elvis Presley his second greatest discovery. Howlin’ Wolf, according to Phillips, was his greatest discovery. Of course, once he had Elvis he left rhythm and blues alone.
I have a book in my library entitled “The Memphis Blues Again” by a Memphis-based photojournalist by the name of Ernest Withers with text by Daniel Wolff.
The book chronicles six decades of music in Memphis. There are several shots of Elvis Presley hanging out backstage with B.B. King, Brook Benton, Little Junior Parker and Bobby Blue Bland. Mr. Withers wrote, “Elvis was young and not chaperoned by Colonel Parker and them around black people. That was his own hobbyistic style – of coming around African-American people.”
There are also in circulation several shots of King Elvis posing with Mr. Excitement Jackie Wilson. One in particular charms me. Standing side by side with megastar smiles, basking in each others' glow, the two seem on top of the world, yet both destined to meet sad ends. Most folks know of the rise and fall and rise of Elvis. Fewer remember Jackie Wilson.
Jackie Wilson first achieved fame as a member of Billy Ward and the Dominoes. Inserting Wilson into the lead singer slot in 1956, the group had a hit with “St. Therese of the Roses.”
In 1957 Wilson opted for a solo career. He signed with the Brunswick label and soon hooked up with future Motown Mogul Berry Gordy.
Gordy and his songwriting partner Roquel Davis wrote several hits for Jackie including the 1958 smash hit, “Lonely Teardrops,” which rose to No. 7 on the pop charts.
Gordy, Davis and Wilson parted ways. Gordy went on to start Motown. Davis became a successful staff writer at Chess Records and Jackie Wilson became Mr. Excitement, influencing generations of entertainers from Elvis Presley to Michael Jackson.
His stage show was amazing. I saw Jackie Wilson perform in Oakland at a concert billed “Soulville ’67.” After a frenetic excursion into the realm of multi-octave, glass-shattering vocal technique and hit-the-splits precision dance moves, Wilson expertly slowed the tempo down and after singing and pleading on his back for a while stood up to a line of overly excited female fans and passionately kissed every one of them. This 16-year-old CyberSoulTeen was completely flabbergasted.
Ironically, Wilson – an admirer of Presley – stated that he as well as other black entertainers copied Elvis as well. Sounds like everybody was rubbing off on everybody!
Apparently Elvis Presley was introduced to pharmaceutical drug use in the military. It would spiral into an addiction that would contribute greatly to his death. Though he publicly took a stance against illicit drug use the King became hooked just the same.
In a conversation I had with Queen of the West Coast Blues Sugar Pie DeSanto, who worked with Mr. Excitement, she said that she had never witnessed a man with the appetite for drugs that Wilson displayed.
Jackie Wilson collapsed on stage at the Latin Casino in Cherry Hill, New Jersey in 1975. He was in a coma until his death in 1984. Elvis Presley, who preceded Wilson in death, visited Jackie Wilson many times between 1975 and Presley’s own demise in 1977.
In the mid-1970s I heard one of the most unsettling radio broadcasts I’ve ever heard. A Bay Area disc jockey played a recording that he claimed was the bedside voice of Jackie Wilson, moaning unintelligible thank yous to the legions of fans that had sent him flowers, gifts and cards.
The point perhaps of this CyberSoul excursion is the legacy these similarly talented men left. Presley, the so-called King of Rock & Roll, amassed a fortune and garnered the hearts of generations of Americans. Presley’s Graceland is visited by a half a million souls yearly. There are Elvis cruises and all satellite radio Elvis stations.
Jackie Wilson is buried at Westlawn Cemetery in Wayne County, Michigan. The spot is marked by an elegant headstone. The inscription reads: “Jackie Wilson, The Complete Entertainer. No more Lonely Teardrops.”
Keep prayin’, keep thinkin’ those kind thoughts.
*****
Upcoming cool events:
Monday, November 16
Blues Monday at the Blue Wing featuring Blues Farm with Dave Broida. 6:30 p.m. to 9:30 p.m. Blue Wing Saloon & Café, 9520 Main St., Upper Lake. Information: 707-275-2233 or www.bluewingsaloon.com .
Thursday, November 19
Twice As Good celebrates its new CD with a release party. The band will perform along with Jacques Wilkens and the SoulShine Blues Band. 8 p.m. The Last Day Saloon, 120 Fifth St. at Davis Street, Santa Rosa. Hotline: 707-545-2343; office: 707-545-5876.
Sunday, Nov. 22
A benefit concert for Norton Buffalo to be held on Sunday, Nov. 22, in Paradise at the Performing Arts Center. The concert will feature Roy Rogers and Delta Rhythm Kings, Tom Rigney and Flambeau,
and more. Tickets are $40. Doors open at 5 p.m., the show starts at 6:30 p.m. Call 877-397-3363, between 10 a.m. and 10 p.m. Mail checks for tickets to Bill Anderson, 6848 U, Skyway, Paradise CA 95969. Tickets are selling well! If you are unable to make the concert, donations for medical bills may be made out to Lisa Flores or Norton Buffalo, 5905 D Clark Road, Paradise CA 95969.
Friday, Nov. 27, and Saturday, Nov. 28
Fifteenth annual Holiday Jazz Festival at Hyatt Regency Lake Tahoe Resort, Spa & Casino. The festival kicks off on Nov. 27 with the top-selling American jazz artist, trumpeter Chris Botti, who boasts four No. 1 jazz albums, as well as multiple gold and platinum albums and Grammy Awards. He has performed and recorded with artists such as Sting, Josh Groban, Paul Simon, John Mayer, Andrea Boccelli and Jill Scott. Nov. 28 features funky horn man Boney James. A saxophonist, producer and songwriter, James' success with contemporary jazz and R&B have made him one of the most respected and best-selling instrumental artists of our time. Doors open each evening at 7 p.m. with live entertainment beginning at 8 p.m. For tickets call Omega Events Box Office at 949-360-7800 or visit www.omegaevents.com.
T. Watts is a writer, radio host and music critic. Visit his Web site at www.teewatts.biz .
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BERKELEY – Federal stimulus funds have been awarded to the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory to study and advance enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) technology.
Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, which is a US Department of Energy national laboratory, reported that it received $7 million in American Recovery and Reinvestment Act funding for four projects that seek to advance EGS technology, which involves enhancing or engineering a fracture network deep in the earth.
Mack Kennedy, a geochemist and manager of Lawrence Berkeley Lab’s geothermal program, told Lake County News that the projects all will be conducted in the lab.
EGS technology makes it possible to get heat from deep inside the earth in cases where conventional geothermal technologies – which generally must be near active volcanic centers or have very high temperature gradients – don't work, the laboratory reported.
Considered a clean and green technology that has the added benefit of being available around the clock and at any time of year, increased focus is being placed on geothermal production nationwide.
The Department of Energy reported that geothermal energy currently provides less than 1 percent of total U.S. electricity and 8 percent of renewable electricity generation.
The agency believes EGS could increase geothermal production 40-fold – increasing production to provide 10 percent of the United States' electricity needs.
The $7 million award for the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory is part of a $400 million investment that the Department of Energy has made in geothermal energy thanks to the Recovery Act.
In The Geysers steamfield in Lake and Sonoma counties, Calpine is using the enhanced technology, according to a statement made to Lake County News this summer by Dennis Gilles, Calpine's senior vice president of renewables growth.
In Calpine's case, it involves injecting water into existing cracks in the bedrock and using the resulting steam to power the geothermal facility.
Over the summer, AltaRock Energy had begun drilling on an enhanced geothermal systems project above Anderson Springs. That project, which proposed to actually create new fractures in order to put water into them, appears to now be on hold due to problems with drilling, as Lake County News has reported.
Kennedy said the goal is to find ways to expand the geothermal resource base.
The four projects are as follows:
– Fluid imaging ($1.95 million): Underground fluid manipulation, necessary to enhance permeability, is critical to making EGS successful manipulation of fluids underground to enhance permeability. Scientists haven't been able to reliably predict how fluid moves, its locations and concentrations several kilometers below the surface. This project seeks will use geophysical data from sources such as seismic and electromagnetic surveys to create better fluid imaging, which can minimize the cost associated with drilling additional wells.
– Estimating fracture surface area ($1.95 million): Scientists will use natural chemical and isotopic tracers to estimate changes in fracture surface area induced by well stimulation. The lab noted that understanding the surface area and permeability of the rock’s fracture network is important in determining the capacity and longevity of EGS systems.
– Thermal-hydrological-mechanical-chemical (THMC) modeling ($1.74 million): Scientists will seek to develop a model using rock mechanics, chemistry and fluid flow to develop a tool that will allow for more effective strategies for heat extraction and reservoir sustainability.
– CO2 as fluid: ($1.32 million): Instead of using water to transmit heat, the project will look at using carbon dioxide, which theoretical studies suggest could extract heat from fracture rock at about 50 percent higher rates than water. This project is a collaboration with Idaho National Laboratory.
Officials noted that most of these technologies also will be of use in evaluating conventional geothermal reservoirs.
Kennedy said the research is intended to help predict, guide and manage the impacts of stimulation in geothermal systems.
“It's both to make it safe and efficient,” he said.
Understanding the physical aspects of underground fractures also is critical to advancing geothermal. “We don't really have any good ways of doing that,” which Kennedy said is a major reason for the research.
“That would have far-reaching implications beyond heat exchange,” and would help with managing geothermal and other energy production fields – including oil and gas, Kennedy said.
Some of the projects also will try to determine if there's a way of predicting a resource's longevity.
The fourth project, which looks at using carbon dioxide as a heat exchange medium, is very promising on paper, said Kennedy.
“There's a lot of just fundamental science about CO2 and that kind of environment that we don't understand,” he said.
The idea was first presented at a conference at Stanford University. Kennedy said it has a lot of potential advantages, including sequestration. He called it a double-edged sword, but a good one.
Visit the lab's EGS Web site at http://esd.lbl.gov/research/projects/induced_seismicity/egs/ .
E-mail Elizabeth Larson at
MOFFETT FIELD, Calif. – Preliminary data from NASA's Lunar Crater Observation and Sensing Satellite, or LCROSS, indicates the mission successfully uncovered water in a permanently shadowed lunar crater.
NASA said the discovery opens a new chapter in our understanding of the moon.
The LCROSS spacecraft and a companion rocket stage made twin impacts in the Cabeus crater Oct. 9 that created a plume of material from the bottom of a crater that has not seen sunlight in billions of years. The plume traveled at a high angle beyond the rim of Cabeus and into sunlight, while an additional curtain of debris was ejected more laterally.
"We're unlocking the mysteries of our nearest neighbor and, by extension, the solar system," said Michael Wargo, chief lunar scientist at NASA Headquarters in Washington. "The moon harbors many secrets, and LCROSS has added a new layer to our understanding."
Scientists long have speculated about the source of significant quantities of hydrogen that have been observed at the lunar poles. The LCROSS findings are shedding new light on the question with the discovery of water, which could be more widespread and in greater quantity than previously suspected. If the water that was formed or deposited is billions of years old, these polar cold traps could hold a key to the history and evolution of the solar system, much as an ice core sample taken on Earth reveals ancient data. In addition, water and other compounds represent potential resources that could sustain future lunar exploration.
Since the impacts, the LCROSS science team has been analyzing the huge amount of data the spacecraft collected. The team concentrated on data from the satellite's spectrometers, which provide the most definitive information about the presence of water. A spectrometer helps identify the composition of materials by examining light they emit or absorb.
"We are ecstatic," said Anthony Colaprete, LCROSS project scientist and principal investigator at NASA's Ames Research Center in Moffett Field, Calif. "Multiple lines of evidence show water was present in both the high angle vapor plume and the ejecta curtain created by the LCROSS Centaur impact. The concentration and distribution of water and other substances requires further analysis, but it is safe to say Cabeus holds water."
The team took the known near-infrared spectral signatures of water and other materials and compared them to the impact spectra the LCROSS near infrared spectrometer collected.
"We were able to match the spectra from LCROSS data only when we inserted the spectra for water," Colaprete said. "No other reasonable combination of other compounds that we tried matched the observations. The possibility of contamination from the Centaur also was ruled out."
Additional confirmation came from an emission in the ultraviolet spectrum that was attributed to hydroxyl, one product from the break-up of water by sunlight. When atoms and molecules are excited, they release energy at specific wavelengths that can be detected by the spectrometers. A similar process is used in neon signs. When electrified, a specific gas will produce a distinct color. Just after impact, the LCROSS ultraviolet visible spectrometer detected hydroxyl signatures that are consistent with a water vapor cloud in sunlight.
Data from the other LCROSS instruments are being analyzed for additional clues about the state and distribution of the material at the impact site. The LCROSS science team and colleagues are poring over the data to understand the entire impact event, from flash to crater. The goal is to understand the distribution of all materials within the soil at the impact site.
"The full understanding of the LCROSS data may take some time. The data is that rich," Colaprete said. "Along with the water in Cabeus, there are hints of other intriguing substances. The permanently shadowed regions of the moon are truly cold traps, collecting and preserving material over billions of years."
LCROSS was launched June 18 from NASA's Kennedy Space Center in Florida as a companion mission to the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter, or LRO. Moving at a speed of more than 1.5 miles per second, the spent upper stage of its launch vehicle hit the lunar surface shortly after 4:31 a.m. PDT Oct. 9, creating an impact that instruments aboard LCROSS observed for approximately four minutes. LCROSS then impacted the surface at approximately 4:36 a.m.
LRO observed the impact and continues to pass over the site to give the LCROSS team additional insight into the mechanics of the impact and its resulting craters. The LCROSS science team is working closely with scientists from LRO and other observatories that viewed the impact to analyze and understand the full scope of the LCROSS data.
For information about LCROSS, visit http://www.nasa.gov/lcross .
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WaterColor Restaurant and Bar
6190 Soda Bay Rd.
Kelseyville, CA. 95451
707-279-8254
Wednesday through Friday, 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Saturday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 5 p.m. to 9 p.m.
Since I once reviewed WaterColor Restaurant’s “Sunday Night Sushi” menu but not their regular menu, I have always planned on revisiting WaterColor Restaurant at the Ferndale Resort. I had been waiting to do it when they moved the facility to the Clear Lake Queen, but the other night when I was planning to have dinner elsewhere and that place wasn’t open, I decided to drop in on WaterColor since it wasn’t far away.
My family and I arrived fairly early in the evening and there were plenty of open tables, so the fact that we didn’t have reservation wasn’t a problem this time. We were seated immediately in the elegant, moderately lit dinning room which was set with white-clothed tables with candles, shiny silverware, and perfectly clean stemware.
I’m not a musician and have no musical talent at all, so I’m not sure if the music quietly being piped into the room was elevator grade jazz or dentist’s office grade jazz, but it gave us the giggles trying to describe it to each other.
Our waiter Danny was just the way I like the wait staff to be – there when we needed him but nowhere to be seen when we didn’t. They could do an episode of “Ghost Hunters” about him, because one moment he’s there then poof he’s gone. He never hovered over us or watched us from across the room; he just maintained an ethereal presence that made the dinner more enjoyable. Sorry, Danny, but if Holly got the nickname “Hollywood” from my last review, you are probably going to get one also.
We started the meal off with the fried calamari and rock shrimp appetizer, and my daughter gave what will go down as one of the great quotes of her life: “Calamari is the only way that I will eat squid.” We laughed and said, “Is beef the only way you’ll eat cow?”
We finally came to the conclusion that she meant “battered and deep fried” was the only way she would eat squid. WaterColor’s calamari is much lighter, crisper, not at all “doughy,” and much better than average fried squid, so much so that it is on my list to be ordered anytime I go there.
Dinner came with a choice of soup or salad and I made the mistake of ordering the salad. Not that the mixed greens weren’t good, but because I tried a little bit of the butternut squash soup that my daughter had and it was so fantastic. I recently made a squash soup at home which I was quite pleased with, but this was far and away better.
My wife and I started to joke about the scene in the movie “Once Upon a Time in Mexico,” where Johnny Depp is talking about how fantastic his puerco pibil is, and that it is so good, that it’s too good, so that he’s going to have to kill the cook just to restore balance in the world. The soup was that good. I looked at online reviews of WaterColor and even some of them made comments on how good other soups they’ve made there are.
My entrée was the “candy stripped marlin” (the misspelling of the word “striped” and a couple of other words made reading the menu part of the fun of the evening) set atop garlic mashed potatoes and topped with pineapple salsa, with a side of cooked collard greens. Danny mentioned that it is served rare but that it can be cooked through if I chose; I didn’t. Every part of the dish was extraordinary so I continued to joke that “the cook has to die just to level the playing field.”
My wife had the spinach and cheese stuffed ravioli in a pesto cream sauce. It came in a large bowl and smelled wonderful. She loved the ravioli, but towards the end of dinner admitted that the pesto cream sauce was a bit too heavy so that she couldn’t finish the whole portion.
My daughter had the rib eye steak, rare. It came with an abundance of crinkle cut French fries that looked like about three whole potatoes worth. She knew from the start that she wouldn’t be finishing this meal. She tore into the steak like the starving petting zoo vegetarian she is. She said it was the best steak she had ever had, and considering the number of times this girl eats out with me and the nonstop critiquing that she is subjected to listening to, I think I can trust her judgment that it was a very good steak.
We all ate until we were stuffed like bass on a wall and just as unlikely to move anytime soon. Even so, when we heard Danny telling the customers at another table what the desserts were my wife and daughter started making cooing noises. Of the six desserts available I was too full to even consider ordering one of them, but my wife and daughter each ordered one to go.
According to the menu, David Dalton is the chef at WaterColor and my advice to him is that if he sees Johnny Depp in the restaurant, run out the back door. My advice to anyone reading this is, get the soup.
Ross A. Christensen is an award-winning gardener and gourmet cook. He is the author of "Sushi A to Z, The Ultimate Guide" and is currently working on a new book. He has been a public speaker for many years and enjoys being involved in the community. Follow him on Twitter, http://twitter.com/Foodiefreak .
HIDDEN VALLEY LAKE – A home was damaged and its garage destroyed in a Hidden Valley Lake fire on Friday morning.
Cal Fire reported that the fire occurred on Coyle Springs Road at about 10:15 a.m. Friday.
The home's garage was fully involved when firefighters arrived on scene, according to Cal Fire.
Other agencies responding to the scene included South Lake County Fire and Hidden Valley Lake Safety and Security, according to witness David Lemoine.
Neighbors at the scene said the home was unoccupied at the time, Lemoine said.
Cal Fire said the garage and its contents were destroyed and the nearby home also was damaged.
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