LAKEPORT, Calif. – The Soper-Reese Community Theatre in Lakeport is presenting a special Third Friday Live “After The Park” concert on Friday, July 20, featuring Short Stax with special guest Machiko.
The theater is located at 275 S. Main St.
Join them after the “Cheating Daylight” concert in the park in Lakeport. Doors will open at 7:30 p.m.
All tickets are $10. Food and drinks will be available for purchase. The dance floor is down and ready.
Machiko is a classically trained musician, a singer from Tokyo, Japan.
Short Stax consists of local musicians “Mojo” Larry Platz, guitar; David Neft, keyboard and bass; and Steven DuBois on drums.
You may recognize them as three-fifths of Bill Noteman and the Rockets. The music is all instrumental, a la The Meters, Booker-T and the MG’s and The Crusaders – kind of funky bluesy, a bit rockin’ jazzy, but all fun.
“This is a new side project,” said Mojo. “We have always loved instrumentals and share a love of anything that came out of Stax Records in the 60s, hence the name, ‘Short Stax’. So far we have been well received, playing Cobbstock, the Soper Reese Theater, Kelseyville Pear Fest, Cotati Summer Concerts, the Santa Rosa Farmers Markets and several local wineries. We also opened for the legendary Robert Cray.”
David and Mojo have been playing together since 1983.
NICE, Calif. – R&B singer Kayla Bell and guitarist Lindy Day have formed a rock/blues duet and will perform at the Meals On Wheels second annual benefit this Saturday, July 21, at 4 p.m.
This event benefits the Lucerne and Lakeport Senior Centers and features vendors, raffles, food, drinks and will take place at 3297 East Highway 20 in Nice.
Bell and Day are bringing their unique talents to Lake County and their set contains covers from Adele, to Norah Jones to the Beatles.
Bell is able to cover a variety of genres, her favorite being blues. She has 15 years’ experience singing and began her career in the Bethel African Methodist Choir in Marysville, Calif., and recently sang the National Anthem at the Lakeport July 4 fireworks event.
Day is a local guitarist known for performing classical guitar with her partner, Native American flute performer Kevin Village Stone.
Although she’s known in Lake County for her classical guitar, Day’s roots go back to Manhattan, New York, where she played electric guitar in indie bands.
“Modern indie music is about the furthest thing from classical guitar as you can get,” said Day. “But when you’re a working musician, you’ve got to be proficient in lots of genres. Plus, it’s really nice to be able to switch from Beethoven to Clapton on a whim.”
For more event information call 707-275-2366.
For more information on Lindy Day, Kayla Bell or Kevin Village Stone, visit www.WhisperingLight.com or call 707-245-5968.
LAKEPORT, Calif. – Watershed Books will host an artistic opportunity to create one-of-a-kind bookmarks with the help of local artist Diana Liebe on Friday, July 20.
The workshop will take place from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the bookstore, 305 N. Main St.
The age group is 8 to 12.
Come and enjoy the fun, have refreshments and stay cool.
For more information call Cheri Holden at 707-263-5787 or email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
I’d guess that many of you have looked at old snapshots taken of you by doting relatives and tried to recall what it was like to be that person in the picture who seems to be you yet is such a stranger today. Here Linda Parsons Marion, who lives in Knoxville, Tennessee, touches upon the great distance between then and now.
Snapshot
My mother sends the baby pictures she promised— egg hunting in Shelby Park, wooden blocks and Thumbelina tossed on the rug, knotty pine walls in a house lost to memory. I separate out the early ones, studying my navel or crumbs on the tray, taken before my awareness of Sylvania Superflash. Here I am sitting on the dinette table, the near birthday cake striking me dumb. Two places of wedding china, two glasses of milk, posed for the marvelous moment: the child squishes the fluted rosettes, mother claps her hands, father snaps the picture in the face of time. When the sticky sweet is washed off the page, we are pasted in an album of blessed amnesia. The father leaves the pine house and sees the child on weekends, the mother stores the china on the top shelf until it’s dull and crazed, the saucer-eyed girl grips her curved spoon like there’s no tomorrow.
If you take your kids to the movies, you could do far worse than the fourth installment of “Ice Age.” You could have taken them to something wholly inappropriate, like “Savages” or the Katy Perry puff piece.
Actually, “Ice Age: Continental Drift,” nicely done in 3D, while it treads little new ground, is amusing and entertaining in a primitive fashion fitting for its prehistoric times.
“Ice Age 4” explains that Scrat the hyperactive squirrel, forever chasing the elusive acorn, is responsible for the continental breakup, as his pursuit takes him to the earth’s molten core.
This cartoon franchise succeeds or not, depending on your point of view, in rehashing the familiar themes of camaraderie and fidelity that bind a misfit bunch of mammals acting out the equivalent of a Fifties’ sitcom.
Leading the pack is the clueless woolly mammoth Manny (voiced by Ray Romano). He and wife Ellie (Queen Latifah) cope with mildly rebellious teenage daughter Peaches (Keke Palmer), who’s thinking about the cute boy who has all the wit and charm of a drug-addled surfer.
Manny’s closest friends are Diego (Denis Leary), the grouchy saber-toothed tiger and Sid (John Leguizamo), the dopey sloth who provides immediate comic relief.
A sudden continental drift separates Manny, Diego and Sid from their friends and family members. Cast adrift on an ice floe, they try to figure a way home, a task made more complicated by less benevolent creatures.
Introduced to an element of danger and intrigue, the “Ice Age” pals discover they are not alone in being stranded on the high seas with land nowhere in sight.
A nasty orangutan named Captain Gutt (Peter Dinklage), who flies a skunk from his mast to represent a pirate flag, is roaming the ocean with a mangy crew of thugs in search of illicit treasure.
One member of the pirate crew gets noticed by the crusty Diego. The slinky, silver-haired tigress named Shira (Jennifer Lopez), though initially hostile, proves to be a promising love interest for the bachelor tiger.
The slothful, doltish Sid provides enough laughs on his own. But this time, his wacky granny (Wandy Sykes), abandoned by other family members for constantly talking a nasty game, proves to be an amusing addition to the adventure at sea.
A meaningful plot and coherent story are not prerequisites for enjoyment of this lighthearted comedy. For good measure, homage to “Braveheart” is rendered an essential part of an uprising against the scurvy pirates.
Aside from great use of the 3D device, “Ice Age: Continental Drift” allows the greatest pleasure in the often absurd banter between the characters, with the best lines going to the sloths Sid and Granny and a dim-witted walrus (Nick Frost) on the pirate crew.
Moving at a fast pace, with a running time of 87 minutes, everything stays afloat in “Ice Age,” much like the unsinkable pirate iceberg. This franchise will continue to drift blissfully along to success as family-friendly entertainment.
DVD RELEASE UPDATE
Some of the best television is occurring on the cable networks, from “Mad Men” on AMC to “Burn Notice” on USA to even several shows on the TNT network.
One of the fun series of cable’s last season was the TNT series “Franklin & Bash,” an offbeat legal drama about the escapades of two young, fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants street lawyers.
Now in DVD release, “Franklin & Bash: The Complete First Season” captures the adventures of Peter Bash (Mark-Paul Gosselaar), the confident ladies’ man with a knack for connecting with the jury, and Jared Franklin (Breckin Meyer), his quick-witted best friend.
The unconventional duo, newly recruited by a legendary button-down law firm run by Stanton Infeld (Malcolm McDowell), shakes up the establishment with their quirky courtroom approach to every new case.
Operating as a team, Franklin and Bash are good lawyers, despite their wild antics, shocking tactics and irregular courtroom theatrics.
The three-disc DVD set, with all 10 episodes, includes many bonus features, including a blooper reel, behind-the-scenes specials, and a man cave tour of the Franklin and Bash bachelor pad/home office.
This amusing, smart series has already started its second season, so hurry now to get “Franklin & Bash: The Complete First Season” and catch up on the fun.
Tim Riley writes film and television reviews for Lake County News.
Lots of contemporary poems are merely little personal anecdotes set into lines, but I prefer my anecdotes to have an overlay of magic. Here’s just such a poem by Shawn Pittard, who lives in California.
The Silver Fish
I killed a great silver fish, cut him open with a long
thin knife. The river carried his heart away. I took his
dead eyes home. His red flesh sang to me on the fire I built
in my backyard. His taste was the lost memory of my
wildness. Behind amber clouds of cedar smoke, Orion
drew his bow. A black moon rose from the night’s dark waters,
a sliver of its bright face reflecting back into the universe.
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