Stan lives on

For Spamalot, Dennis Castellano has allowed one of my Stan masks to live on the conductor's stand. Everyone who looks in a monitor to watch Dennis will see Stan too.

Amazing view of the American River...

...from my customer's house. This is on a cliff about fifty feet above the river.

African bellows

Elk Antlers

These antlers are backstage at the Elks Lodge No. 6. I played at what turned out to be the very last performance of the George Bruno big band. He deserves a rest; he's 86! Happy retirement!

We watched the US play Ghana at Giovanni's Pizza...

Ghana won because of their juju.

Prop piano for SPAMALOT

Piano bench with back that flips up

Publish Post

The inflatable furniture has cup holders

Bizarre colored soap at the car wash

But it did get my car clean.

Inflatable furniture in the Music Circus production office

Beautiful, ornate dispenser for...?

Chinese zither

The Zen of a chocolate egg

Disturbing face in the window

This one is an inny

If you're ever trapped in a room full of accordions...

...don't try to be a hero. Do whatever they tell you to do and wait for the SWAT team to rescue you.

Alice in Wonderland chess set

This customer, who lives in one of Woodland's many fine old Victorians, has a large collection of Alice in Wonderland objects. It turns out she was also in Ashland at the same time as we were!

Food to watch soccer by

Fish, chips, and peas.

Jennifer inside the phone booth at the pub

U! S! A! U! S! A!

Just after we checked out of our hotel we went over to the only English pub in Ashland to watch the U.S.-England match. I just intended to stay for 30 minutes, but I couldn't tear myself away! Soccer is so emotional. And it's so exciting to realize that the entire world is watching. It was one of my greatest sporting experiences ever. (Even though England was clearly better, the U.S. eked out a 1-1 draw.)

My other daughter

On Election Day, a couple of people came by in the afternoon to see if we had voted. One of them was Sophie, the daughter of the other Mark Stivers!

Merchant of Venice in Ashland

We saw Merchant of Venice in the Elizabethan theatre tonight. Great show, but very cold in the last hour. We definitely could have used a blanket.

Happy 22nd birthday, Espresso Metro!

Got the SPAMALOT book today!

The keyboard programming will be a big headache, but playing the show should be a massive amount of fun.

This guitar belonged to the lead guitarist of Boston!

and our great local jazz guitarist Steve Homan received it as a gift.

The set of the Ella tribute show

At the Ella tribute show, they had a cigarette girl...

...selling candy cigarettes.

At KXJZ

Friday morning Lorraine and I went into KXJZ so she could be interviewed on the "Insight" show. We also recorded a two-minute version of "Frim Fram Sauce."

Winetasting fundraiser

We had our winetasting fundraiser tonight. Including the raffle for the quilt, we raised over $1,000!

Bear looking in a Model T

Sacramento French Film Festival poster

Michael Gundy essay on cell phones

Look,

there are entire labs full of Chimps who spend their whole life with Cell-phones bound to their heads. The difference is they don’t answer or make calls.

In fact all Mobile phones are powered internally by mice running in little wheels anyway*.

Its not the phone per-say, its talking and listening to the inane chatter, thats the cause.

If you had one and didn’t use it you would be safe. The phone-companies don’t want you to know that, as it affects their profits.

* The mice have earplugs so they are perfectly safe.

P.S “Charging” really just feeds them essential nutrients, notice each phone needs a “special charger”, which is also why, if you don’t charge your phone regularly, the “battery” goes dead on you (and starts to smell funny).

Thats also why its vitally important to recycle your phone