LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Lake County Theatre Co. is preparing to have is yearly election for board of directors.

Interested persons should email a short introduction (approximately one paragraph) with contact information to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ; this information also can be mailed to P.O. Box 802, Lakeport, CA 95464.

This short biography should be prepared and sent no later than May 10.

A board director is expected to attend every meeting of the board (currently monthly) as well as participate in some substantial part of every performance and/or production.

A board director must be a current LCTC member and more than 18 years of age.

The Lake County Theatre Co. is proud to have a diverse and strong board built of community members with a shared love of theater. They look forward to welcoming our new directors soon.

If there are any questions please email or call 707-355-2272.

Let’s celebrate the first warm days of spring with a poem for mushroom hunters, this one by Amy Fleury, who lives in Louisiana.

First Morel

Up from wood rot,
wrinkling up from duff
and homely damps,
spore-born and cauled
like a meager seer,
it pushes aside earth
to make a small place
from decay. Bashful,
it brings honeycombed
news from below
of the coming plenty
and everything rising.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Copyright 2013 by Amy Fleury from her most recent book of poems, Sympathetic Magic, Southern Illinois University Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Amy Fleury and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. We do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

Media consolidation of the major television networks results in ABC, CBS, FOX and NBC, the major players, having developed in recent years their own media empires that go beyond the traditional network paradigm.

For example, FOX has its cable outlet FX, and now another cable spinoff called FXX. I don’t know what’s next for FOX, but if it’s an F followed by triple Xs, I’d wonder if they are venturing into the soft-core porn late night world that was once, if not still, the realm of Showtime.

Just like its competitors, NBC, or I should say NBC Universal, as a corporate entity with multiple cable platforms, has found a way to reach TV critics outside the conventional winter and summer press tours.

Held during the month of April, NBC promotes upcoming programs in what they call the NBC Universal Summer Press day, even though the calendar tells everyone it is spring. Just like baseball, though, hope is in the air this early in the season.

Arguably, the best part of the press day, apart from the cocktail hour and the celebrity appearances, is the near absence of network executives grinding through the usual give-and-take with journalists, where information given may be only slightly more revealing than a press conference conducted by state-run media in a banana republic.

To be fair, as well as more precise, Jennifer Salke, President of NBC Entertainment, appeared on the NBC Comedy Playground panel, but not in the usual press tour format, and to be honest, I missed the session.

You can’t accuse NBC of not having a sense of fun, or of failing to cash in on a surprise hit. Brace yourself, but “Sharknado 2: The Second One” is coming to the Syfy Channel, the sequel to the beloved disaster horror B movie.

For the uninitiated, the original “Sharknado” was about a freak hurricane that flooded Los Angeles with man-eating sharks that terrorized the populace. The TV movie has achieved the iconic status of “cult film.”

This time around, a freak weather system wreaks havoc on New York City. While sharks are taking a bite of the Big Apple, original film stars Ian Ziering and Tara Reid head to the East Coast to battle the blood-thirsty predators. “Sharknado 2” will be unleashed on July 30th.

While the press day offers a peak at new programs coming within the next couple of months, the first new show to hit TV screens will be the comedy “Playing House” on the USA Network, starting April 29.

Conceived by writing partners and co-stars Lennon Parham and Jessica St. Clair, “Playing House” is a female buddy show in which Parham’s Maggie Caruso is an expectant mother determined to create a happy home for her baby, despite her marriage crumbling.

Maggie finds help and support from best friend Emma (Jessica St. Clair), an energetic businesswoman willing to forgo her overseas career, after the discovery that Maggie’s husband is having an online affair with a muscular German woman.

Early episodes of “Playing House” look too much like a show trying to play safe, not nearly edgy enough when Emma has awkward moments with her high school flame, the local cop. What’s more, attempts to drive unseen raccoons out of the back yard are just not that exciting.

Coming to NBC’s primetime schedule on May 27th is the promising drama “The Night Shift,” set in the emergency ward of San Antonio Memorial Hospital, where the toughest and craziest medical cases always seem to come through the door.

Every shift is a fight between the heroic efforts of saving lives and the hard truths of running an underfunded hospital. The men and women working the night shift are an irreverent and special breed, particularly adrenaline junkie TC Callahan (Eoin Macken), a former Army medic.

Even though the doctors mean business, the casual pranks and wild antics of the staff turn “The Night Shift” into something more like a medical “Animal House” than “ER” and “House, M.D.”

Another comedy about single guys in various states of arrested development, as they hang mostly at a Detroit tavern, arrives on the NBC schedule with “Undateable,” premiering on May 29th.

Comedian Chris D’Elia’s Danny Burton fancies himself a real ladies man who must mentor his buddies who live up to the show’s title. Bar owner Justin (Brent Morin) lacks finesse, while the others in the group are just a bunch of oddballs unlikely to find romance.

Amy Poehler (NBC’s “Parks and Recreation) has teamed up with her brother Greg Poehler to form a production company that aims to produce international TV programs. Their first series, “Welcome to Sweden,” comes to NBC on July 10th and will debut on Sweden’s TV4 network as its first English-language comedy.

Poehler’s Bruce Evans is a successful money manager for celebrities, living in New York with the beautiful Emma Wiik (Josephine Bornebusch), who decides to move back to Stockholm to accept a prestigious banking job.

Emma is surprised and thrilled that Greg decides to chuck his career and move to Sweden so they can begin a new life together. With no job, friends or real clue about what’s in store, Bruce is challenged by the culture clash.

“Welcome to Sweden” is a fish-out-of-water story for Bruce, who wants to win over Emma’s strange family. Lena Olin, as Emma’s mother Viveka, takes an immediate dislike to Bruce, so the tension is palpable.

The pilot episode that I watched may be a challenge for American audiences. A good part of the dialogue is in Swedish with English sub-titles. Subsequent programs seemed to have less Swedish talk, but still I wonder if the sub-titles may prove off-putting.

“Defiance” returns for a second season on the Syfy Channel in June, and the good news is that Linda Hamilton brings her trademark full-on badness to the happenings at the Earth Republic.

I still don’t know anything about the Sprout channel, but they are promoting “Astroblast,” which is probably children’s programming.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.

LUCERNE, Calif. – The Lucerne Alpine Senior Center will host its monthly “ Open Mic Lucerne” event on Saturday, April 26.

The event will take place from 6 to 11 p.m. at the center, 3985 Country Club Drive.

The last Saturday of the month marks this month’s fun rock and roll event with talent assisting from all venues.  

A variety of performers are on stage after the house band FOGG starts out the evening with classic, heavy metal rock and roll with original numbers and covers of your favorites.

FOGG and other entertainers will wrap up the evening by 11 p.m.

Bands and individuals are already signing up for April. The last two months events saw full venues, so sign up early.

Call 707-245-4612 or 707-274-8779 for your reserved time or come and sign-up on site beginning at 5 p.m. Saturday night. Don’t miss this chance.  

Lake County abounds with experienced and fresh talent. Come see and hear the exciting performances. Being in the audience is great fun and free. If you are a performer, this is a great opportunity to show off your talent.

Music, comedy, mime, readings, and any other activity that is family-oriented will be appreciated. Room is also available for dancing and relaxing. There is no charge for attendance or performance.

This is a child-friendly event, so bring the whole family. For those wishing an inexpensive snack, tasty treats are available starting at $2 per plate.

All proceeds from the meal benefit the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center, a nonprofit that serves Northshore senior populations with onsite lunches, Meals on Wheels and advocacy.

For more information about services or Open Mic Lucerne, call the Lucerne Alpine Senior Center at 707-274-8779.

I was born in April and have never agreed with T.S. Eliot that it is “the cruellest month.” Why would I want to have been born from that?

Here’s Robert Hedin, who lives in Minnesota, showing us what April can be like once Eliot is swept aside.

This Morning I Could Do/A Thousand Things

I could fix the leaky pipe
Under the sink, or wander over
And bother Jerry who’s lost
In the bog of his crankcase.
I could drive the half-mile down
To the local mall and browse
Through the bright stables
Of mowers, or maybe catch
The power-walkers puffing away
On their last laps. I could clean
The garage, weed the garden,
Or get out the shears and
Prune the rose bushes back.
Yes, a thousand things
This beautiful April morning.
But I’ve decided to just lie
Here in this old hammock,
Rocking like a lazy metronome,
And wait for the day lilies
To open. The sun is barely
Over the trees, and already
The sprinklers are out,
Raining their immaculate
Bands of light over the lawns.

American Life in Poetry is made possible by The Poetry Foundation ( www.poetryfoundation.org ), publisher of Poetry magazine. It is also supported by the Department of English at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. Poem copyright 2013 by Robert Hedin from his most recent book of poems, Poems Prose Poems, Red Dragonfly Press, 2013. Poem reprinted by permission of Robert Hedin and the publisher. Introduction copyright 2014 by The Poetry Foundation. The introduction's author, Ted Kooser, served as United States Poet Laureate Consultant in Poetry to the Library of Congress from 2004-2006. They do not accept unsolicited manuscripts.

BAD WORDS (Rated R)

Making his feature directorial debut with the subversive black comedy “Bad Words,” Jason Bateman has no problem turning himself into a truly horrible human being, willing to crush the hopes and dreams of overly ambitious grade school students.

Bateman’s Guy Trilby is a 40-year-old deadbeat who finds a loophole in the rules of the Golden Quill national spelling bee and decides to cause trouble by hijacking a competition that rightfully belongs to the deserving pre-teen contestants.

Starting at the regional level, Guy harasses contest officials, outraged parents and the kids who dream of victory and fame, to say nothing of prize money and academic recognition. His verbal assaults are uncouth and profane.

Possessed of a photographic memory, Guy cites the arcane rules of spelling bee contests to point out that his failure to graduate from the eighth grade has made him eligible, regardless of age and experience, to enter the competition.

Indignant contest officials are powerless to keep Guy out of the orthography contests. By the way, orthography is another word for spelling. This word is gratuitously inserted here as a teachable moment, in keeping with the spirit of the contests.

The spelling bee administrator Dr. Deagan (Allison Janney) is determined to have Guy eliminated from the field. That’s why he must spell inaccessible words, including “slubberdegullion.” Fittingly, it’s an archaic word that means a slovenly or worthless person.

Undeterred and unbowed by the vitriol that comes his way, Guy presses on to each new level of the spelling bee, intent on making it to the national Golden Quill event. He’s being sponsored by a publication whose reporter is following his every move.

Journalist Jenny Widgeon (Kathryn Hahn) aids and abets Guy’s qualifying for matches because she has the exclusive rights her subject’s story. Toxic chemistry between them leads to sporadic bouts of hostile sex.

Par for the course, Guy bullies his way through his relationships and into the competitions against nervous adolescents who are easily rattled by his wild antics of verbal abuse and nasty practical jokes.

Guy treats every contest as if he were a UFC cage fighter. His take-no-prisoners approach to winning is alternately funny and unsettling. You feel bad for the kids that are victimized by Guy, but you can’t help laughing, sometimes awkwardly, at the insanity.

Making it to the national championship is Guy’s dream and a nightmare for the organizers, who decide to make his life miserable. His accommodations at the Sportsman’s Lodge include a cot inside the hotel’s utility closet.

Continuing his odious campaign of intimidation, Guy finally meets his match with awkward 10-year-old spelling whiz Chaitanya Chopra (Rohan Chand), a precocious competitor who is completely unfazed by Guy’s antagonistic approach to life.

An unlikely alliance emerges between these two disparate contenders. At first, it seems that Guy is mostly interested in the fact that the Indian boy he calls Slumdog has a mini-bar in his hotel room a few doors removed from the utility closet.

Yet, great chemistry develops between the sweet-natured kid and the ornery middle-aged person who keeps people at arms’ length. Guy takes the kid on a night ride of mischief, inappropriately and hilariously involving strippers, smoking, boozing and shoplifting.

Mostly, Guy treats everyone rudely as the tries to embarrass and outwit the various parties that would deny him the championship trophy. He’s not above being caustic even to his only possible friend, the fellow 10-year-old rival who is best-prepared to actually win.

An unrepentant misanthrope, Guy takes the greatest pleasure in tormenting the Golden Quill’s imperious chief Dr. Bowman (Philip Baker Hall), who is even more unwavering in a quest to get Guy purged from the playing field.

Jason Bateman deserves kudos for his maiden voyage into directing, unafraid to make himself look bad in the service of delivering a good film that showcases great talent and excellent dialogue provided by Andrew Dodge in his first feature screenplay.

A degree of sentimentality creeps into “Bad Words” as the contest winds down to its climactic end. Fortunately, it’s measured so that “Bad Words” does not lose its hard edge of dark comedy.

A quirky black comedy, “Bad Words” is wickedly funny, but its protagonist is often so deeply unlikeable that appreciation of this film may have its limits for some viewers.

Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.