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Will Write for Wheels
The Byrne Report
October 18-24, 2006
Cathy and Craig Caddell live on the outskirts of Petaluma, surrounded by woods, grassy lawns, wandering sheep, running dogs and inquisitive cats. Cathy is a childbirth educator; Craig works for an information-service company. The forty-something couple have two small children, Sara and Dylan (not their real names). And on July 23, the Caddell’s were taken hostage by the medical system.
On that hot morning, a neighbor had put a few drops of pennyroyal on her pets to repel fleas. Pennyroyal is an essential oil made from a herbaceous plant that grows wild in the North Bay. The oil is used to induce abortion and menstruation, and in doses larger than two tablespoons, it can be lethal.
The neighbor accidentally left an irrigation syringe of minty-smelling pennyroyal on her window sill. Playing doctor, Sara, age seven, picked up the syringe and pressed it against her doll’s mouth. The liquid splattered and a few drops went into Sara’s mouth. The girl spit it out and ran home, telling her mother that she might have swallowed a little, but she did not think so.
Erring on the side of caution, Cathy called poison control and was told to rush Sara to an emergency room for treatment. Cathy has a background in herbal medicine. She confirmed with the poison-control operator that activated charcoal is a remedy for pennyroyal ingestion, suggesting that she treat her daughter at home with the antidote. The poison-control operator responded that if Cathy did not take Sara to the ER immediately, the authorities would be alerted.
Poison control called ahead to Petaluma Valley Hospital to alert the ER to the Caddell’s arrival. But once there, Cathy and Sara were left unattended in an ER cubicle for 20 minutes. Finally, Cathy stuck her out head and, upon seeing the attending physician, Dr. Stephen Krickl, instructed, “If you want to get the activated charcoal, do so. Otherwise, I will go to Whole Foods and get some.”
In retrospect, Cathy says, “I think that is when I pissed him off.”
After Sara was given a drink of activated charcoal, she received an electrocardiogram and blood tests; neither showed evidence of poisoning. Cathy declined to authorize a chest X-ray or liver medication. After an hour or so, she went outside to meet Craig, who had just arrived with Dylan. The couple recounts that when they walked back into the ER with their son, Krickl made a snap judgment. Thinking that Dylan had been under Cathy’s care during the ER ordeal, he accused, “You left the boy in the car outside in 105-degree heat!” Krickl then transferred Sara to the intensive care unit for 24 hours of observation.
The Caddells thought the hospital was overreacting and asked for an Against Medical Advice release form so they could take Sara home. Medical staff informed them that if they tried to leave with their daughter, the police would be called.
Cathy and Craig were stunned. Sara had said she did not have contact with more than a drop or two of the oil, if any. She was asymptomatic and the antidote had been administered.
Pediatrician Dr. Martha Cueto-Salas took over. Recounting Sara’s medical history, Cathy told her that Sara was partially immunized, i.e., she does not have the traditional package of booster shots. (Like other modern parents, the Caddells have allowed some vaccines and not others.)
Dr. Cueto-Salas lectured them, they say, as if their informed medical decision was tantamount to child neglect.
With the threat of being arrested hanging over their heads, Cathy and Craig took turns watching Sara in the ICU all night. “I felt like I was wearing a label on my head that said ‘Bad Mother,'” Cathy recalls. In the morning, just prior to checking out, they met with Dr. Cueto-Salas and, through her tears of outrage, Cathy expressed how she felt about her family being abused by Sara’s doctors under the guise of medical precaution.
Adding insult to injury, the hospital bill came to nearly $12,000, a significant portion of which the middle-class Caddells had to cover because their health insurance has a high deductible.
The nightmare continued when Robert Tim Konrad of Sonoma County Child Protective Services (CPS) showed up at the Caddell house two days later with an official complaint alleging child neglect. Konrad was not allowed by law to tell the Caddells who it was that had filed the complaint. They stood accused of under-immunizing Sara; leaving her alone with a toxic substance (pennyroyal); leaving Dylan alone in a hot car for an hour and a half; and for being uninsured. The Caddells were terrified. Child Protective Services has the power to instantly remove children from their homes.
After meeting the Caddells and interviewing Sara, Konrad deemed the complaint to be without merit. End of case. Except that the Caddells felt utterly violated. Cathy says that when she tried to empower herself and Sara as consumers of medical procedures, she was treated as a possible felon. She believes that the poison-control operator framed her as a child neglector to the ER staff, so that when she and Sara arrived they were prejudged by the attending physicians given flawed information. The Caddells decided to go public with this story as a cautionary tale about what can happen to anybody when you question medical authority.
On Oct. 11, the Kafkaesque plot took another turn. After telling me her story, Cathy went to the records division at Petaluma Valley Hospital, which is operated by St. Joseph Health System, and asked to see Sara’s medical records. She filled out a record request form and was told that she could not see the records for five days. Cathy called me and 15 minutes later we went back to the record room together. I identified myself as a reporter, and she asked for her records again. Higher-ups quickly entered the picture. Phyllis Drummond, the hospital’s risk manager, told Cathy, “We do not just hand records over to people to look at.” She then told Cathy that the attending physician had to review the records before Cathy would be allowed to see them, and that the hospital did not have to produce the records for her inspection for five days.
The California Health and Safety Code contradicts Drummond. The law states that the hospital must allow her to see the records within five days of request. Furthermore, the law does not require Petaluma Valley Hospital to allow Sara’s attending physicians to review the records prior to Cathy’s inspection, because the records belong to the hospital, not the physician.
In a telephone interview, Laurie Clayton, the hospital’s corporate compliance officer, told me that the hospital’s policy is to allow a physician to review requested records, and for the physician to decide whether or not handing them over to the patient (or the parent of a minor patient) will “harm” the patient.
Five days later, Cathy received a copy of Sara’s records. The record shows that Krickl made the CPS complaint about the Caddells. He wrote: “They have demonstrated a lack of compliance with immunization and presumably possible mistrust of the medical system.” Krickl incorrectly asserted that Dylan was Sara’s sister and that Cathy had left “her” sleeping in a super-hot car.
In her written comments, Cueto-Salas backed Krickl up. Both physicians repeatedly took umbrage at having their medical judgment questioned by so-called “non-compliant” parents, even though the record shows that Sara was in no danger.
Summing up the experience, Cathy says, “I am fearful of the ever-broadening trend toward the lessening of civil liberties in this country. I am fearful of our culture of fear itself.”
or
New Speak
High Priest
Hometown culture: The idea of a small town having its own philharmonic is one that is catching on across the nation.
By David Templeton
Ever since the Cotati Philharmonic gave its first free concert seven years ago in the tiny, proudly eccentric town of Cotati, maestro Gabriel Sakakeeny has acquired a reputation as a kind of musical holy man, an outspoken philosopher whose view of music and the arts is not unlike what some preachers feel about faith and scripture. To many, in fact, Sakakeeny is Sonoma County’s mighty missionary of music, the Reverend of rhapsody, the cleric of classical culture. Hell, some days, he even thinks of himself that way. And if Sakakeeny has his way, all musicians–amateur and professional–would begin to think of themselves as holy women and holy men of music.
“A lot of pros end up thinking of music as just their job, and they get about as excited at the thought of performing as others get about clocking in at the office,” he says. “My dream is for musicians–professional musicians and all others who are lucky enough to have an orchestra or band or chamber group to play in, and especially musicians in America–to someday begin identifying themselves as the high priests of music and beauty. When that happens, this country will undergo a musical revival that will be absolutely explosive. It’ll turn the culture upside down.”
That lofty and optimistic goal is not just Sakakeeny’s own personal dream; it’s the bedrock mission of the American Philharmonic Association (APA), the five-year-old organization of which Sakakeeny is president. In line with its APA affiliation, the Cotati Philharmonic recently formally changed its named to the American Philharmonic-Sonoma County.
At first, the notion of a town the size of Cotati having its own philharmonic was a cute and whimsical novelty. After a few years, when it became clear that this group was indeed beloved by those unfamiliar with the tonal intricacies of Mahler, the whimsy wore off and the Cotati Philharmonic was viewed as what it always was: the real thing, not cute at all, but seriously dedicated to the emotional thunder of great music played with passion.
The recent name change is not a change of direction or vision for the growing volunteer-based ensemble. More accurately, it’s a reflection of the group’s readiness to take their mission to the next level.
“In some ways,” says Sakakeeny, “it is a recognition of having finally grown up. Over the last seven years, we’ve gone from being an ad hoc collection of committed people who wanted to contribute something to what is emerging as a major force in the symphonic world of the North Bay. Changing our name is the equivalent of graduating, getting a car and moving out of the house.”
Sakakeeny and his 70-plus musicians have gradually become aware that the self-identity of their orchestra, the way they have been thinking about themselves for seven years, has not been in line with the actual impact they have recently been making. Funded at a modest $40,000 annual budget entirely with donations and grants and performing 18 times last year, the philharmonic is creating some serious buzz. What Sakakeeny and the orchestra have created in Cotati is more than an entertainment or community service–it is part of a nationwide musical movement in which small towns across the nation embrace the concept of having their own all-volunteer, fully democratic philharmonic orchestras.
One goal of the APA is to establish a total of 25 regional American Philharmonics over the next quarter century. The growing town of Surprise, Ariz., will join the ranks in 2008 with the debut performance of its American Philharmonic-Surprise. The city of Surprise is currently building a 1,500-seat concert hall for the ensemble, which will become its rent-free home. That’s how serious the notion of a hometown philharmonic is being taken.
While his own orchestra remains without a concert hall, Sakakeeny believes that he and his musicians get far more out of being in the philharmonic than they put into it.
“There’s the whole thing about contributing something for no reason except to do it, because you’re passionate about it, and you want to share that with other people–that’s a spiritual payback,” he says. “It’s uplifting and inspiring. It’s always an incredibly moving thing. It’s truly spiritual.”
Currently rehearsing for the big season opener on the weekend of Oct. 21, the philharmonic is not squeamish when it comes to tackling the greatest and most difficult compositions. The opener, for which the orchestra will be joined by Sonoma’s violin w¸nderkind Nigel Armstrong, will include Beethoven’s “Leonore” Overture no. 3, three works by Saint-Saëns and Brahms’ Symphony no. 3.
To Sakakeeny, there’s nothing better than doing a concert and witnessing the way the music affects and surprises so many people.
“Baby boomers, with no real experience with concert music, come up with tears in their eyes,” he says. “They say things like, ‘Oh my God, I had no idea. I’ve never been to the orchestra and I wouldn’t have come tonight if it hadn’t have been free–and you blew my brains out! I’ll bring my family to this kind of thing from now on and forever.’ And then they go out and buy Santa Rosa Symphony tickets because now they get it.
“It’s like they’ve been converted,” Sakakeeny laughs. “And that really is our mission, like a secular-spiritual-artistic mission, to win converts to the almighty power of classical music.”
The American Philharmonic-Sonoma County performs Friday-Sunday, Oct. 21-23, at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center. Friday-Saturday at 8pm (Friday is a dress rehearsal); Sunday at 3pm. 5409 Snyder Lane, Rohnert Park. Free; donations hugely welcomed. 707.793.2177.
War Stories
Sex Work
October 11-17, 2006
Sex is gross. It’s visually gross, anyway, clumsy and unaesthetic to those not involved. No wonder filmmakers typically use either dance or exercise as a metaphor. The actual getting-down, the sweaty, repetitive craziness of it, is on some level visually offensive to the non-turned on–or at least those who pretend not to be.
People who chuckled at the dirtiness of the ass-to-mouth jokes in Clerks 2 will choke on John Cameron Mitchell’s newest film, Shortbus, where it actually happens. If they spent the year snickering over Brokeback Mountain, they’ll walk out by the titles. Shortbus has explicit sex: recreational, polymorphous, homo and hetero sex.
The title comes from the nickname of a bus that ferries “special” children to school. John Cameron Mitchell, the star, creator and director of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, spent several years assembling an improvisatory cast of newcomers culled from an open online posting, and then worked with cast members to see how far they could go on camera. Consciously or not, Mitchell has combined the plot of two of the best-loved porn movies, Behind the Green Door and Deep Throat.
Set in a post-9-11, Bush-ruined Manhattan, a sex counselor named Sofia (Sook-Yin Lee) has been faking satisfaction ever since she was married. Still, she has a ridiculously athletic sex life; at one point, she’s braced on the keyboard of a piano. “I feel sorry for people who can’t have what we have,” she says, lying to her husband with a wide, scary smile. If you wanted someone to defuse a frightening subject like sex, Lee is the perfect actress: small, herbivorous-looking and embodying a Canadian gentleness (where she’s a TV personality).
Sofia tearfully blurts out the truth to two of her patients, a pair of unhappy gay clones named James and Jamie (Paul Dawson II and Paul DeBoy). They urge her to attend the illegal Shortbus salon–a sex cabaret replete with orgy room–in a forbidden part of town. There she meets someone to whom we’ve already been introduced: an ornery dominatrix named Severin (Lindsay Beamish) who has a high-rise office overlooking the bloody stump of the World Trade Center. Severin tries to therapize the therapist and, unfortunately, Sofia is just as liable as to fall victim to a false epiphany as any of her clients.
James and Jamie attempt to spice up their love life by taking on a third partner, but the new man finds interest in the two of them only as a set–they seem like such a perfect couple. Jamie is aching to set out on his own, one way or another. (The two had been previously known as “James and James”–changing his name was Jamie’s first step on the road out.)
The visitors at Shortbus help provide support for these crises. Justin Bond, a well-known Manhattan cabaret figure who typically performs under the name of Kiki, has the role of brothel madame, but the press notes assure that he plays himself. Our cinema is loaded with witty gay male quippers, but Bond is the only genuinely funny one I’ve seen in a long time. He gives depth a holiday.
Shortbus is a lovable film for neither over-intellectualizing or over-dramatizing its plights, and movies with sex are traditionally held together with drama instead of comedy. Mitchell has larded the film with smart jokes: a plaque reading “New York Sensory Deprivation Center–Fourth Floor”; an overdose victim comes to in “Our Lady of Adequate Mercy Hospital.” Still, Shortbus has a center. In showing the numbness of a pair of characters who are calloused by sex work, Mitchell reflects the cruel, conformist and deadening world of mainstream porn.
Shortbus is held together by shots of a cardboard and tempera city over which a camera gyres and gimbals. Compare the unthreatening kid stuff of Michel Gondry’s sets in The Science of Sleep to Mitchell’s cardboard Manhattan, a maze of buildings around the thick and dangerous forest of Central Park. It’s alive with sexual energy, but is plagued by brownouts–misunderstandings causing a disturbance in the sexual force.
The wall between porn and non-porn will come down. Filmmakers as different as Bernardo Bertolucci, Lars von Trier, Wayne Wang and Catherine Breillat have made holes in it already. John Cameron Mitchell’s tart, sweet but never sloppy film shows its actors actually having sex, putting it ahead of the pack to come.
Shortbus is not the work of a fraud, a pornographer pretending to be an artist. Sometimes the actors fail, some situations aren’t as compelling as others, and Mitchell has trouble wrapping his film up. Still, Shortbus is everything an underground movie ought to be. It’s a joy, it’s a threat to the established order and it’s a celebration of messy urban life and what Mitchell describes as “permeability”–the ability to let ideas and other people through the armor.
‘Shortbus’ opens Friday, Oct. 13, at the Rialto Lakeside Cinemas, 551 Summerfield Road, Santa Rosa. 707.525.4840.
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News Briefs
October 11-17, 2006
Filing a McSuit
The multinational McDonald’s Corp. is now an additional defendant in an ongoing wage-and-hour class-action lawsuit against Robert Mendez, chief owner of seven Mickey D franchises in Sonoma County. “By adding the corporation, we’re hoping MacDonald’s will realize they too must improve their practices,” says Marin-based attorney Karen Carrera, whose efforts on behalf of low-income Hispanic women workers were profiled in these pages Sept. 13. Filed by the Talamantes/Villegas/Carrera firm and the Lawyer’s Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area, the suit alleges that employees were routinely underpaid, forced to work without rest and meal breaks, and required to put in time “off the clock” without pay. McDonald’s Corp. ran the stores before selling them to Mendez, and employees allege the infractions occurred under both ownership situations, says Carrera. In a separate case, Carrera’s firm and Legal Aid of Marin filed a similar class-action suit against Subway Sandwich restaurants owned by Kuldeep Sidhu in San Rafael, Novato, Santa Rosa and Martinez.
Counsel for kids
A single Sonoma County deputy district attorney will prosecute every aspect of all child sexual and physical abuse cases, once the county gets an expected $155,655 grant from the state. “It’s pretty much a done thing,” says Assistant District Attorney Larry Scoufos. “We hope to get somebody onboard in the next six to eight weeks.” One year’s salary and benefits will be paid by the state’s Vertical Prosecution Program. In vertical prosecution, cases of a certain type are always tried by the same attorney, creating expertise in that particular area. Plus, victims are represented by the same prosecutor each time, no matter what the level of legal proceedings. “The relationship is much more of a rapport for the victim and prosecutor than if two or three [deputy district attorneys] are involved,” Scoufos says. Sonoma County already has a vertical prosecution program for statutory rape.
Cool on warm
Napa County’s preliminary general plan update will include the phrases “greenhouse gasses” and “climate change” but not “global warming.” These wording nuances were created by the county’s General Plan Steering Committee, a group of 21 citizens who began meeting in July 2005, says planning director Hillary Gitelman. The group is about half-way through the process of revamping the document that will guide future development decisions. Committee members recently discussed how to deal with global warming in the document but couldn’t agree. “They preferred the terms ‘climate change’ and ‘greenhouse gasses,’ but the term ‘global warming,’ they didn’t like it,” Gitelman notes. A draft plan with this wording will be issued early next year. “I’m sure we’ll get comments from the public on these terms,” Gitelman says.
Twang with Bang
Good word: Honky-tonk and old-timey revivialism are alive and in overalls.
By Karl Byrn
When I speak with the Rev. Spike Stain, we always talk about Elvis. We’ll both tout the King’s out-of-print late ’60s collection The Memphis Record, noting how much we dig the swinging hard blues of “Stranger in My Own Hometown” and Presley’s maturity in general. Sometimes we talk about the Bible; sometimes we just get another beer.
Stain is musician Mike Steen of Santa Rosa, and he’s a genuine practicing minister, legally ordained for Christian ministry (and work with “other nondenominational beliefs”) through the Universal Life Church in Modesto. He’s a tall, imposing, yet friendly 30ish man who always wears denim overalls and speaks with the modest drawl of a Southern gentleman, a trait no doubt picked up from his childhood on a 30-acre prune farm in rural Merced County.
In his ministry, Steen has presided over several local weddings and funerals, “bringing to each the sacred quality it deserves,” he says, “in a very traditional way, respecting traditions.” He also sings and plays guitar in two hot rock acts with Sonoma County roots, the acoustic rockabilly-gospel duo Revival Revue and the tougher rocking country four-piece Haywire Honky Tonk.
Elvis himself once said that every style in the rock and roll mix actually springs from gospel music. Revival Revue make a strong case for Presley’s point. The Reverend entertains feverishly, shaking, jumping, growling, and exhorting his audience to believe in music that’s “inspirational, sensational, motivational!” Balanced by the steady, slapping click-clack of upright bass player Todd Troublemaker, The Reverend bashes out original rockabilly songs, folk-blues favorites, and gospel standards like “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot.”
Revival Revue recently celebrated its 100th gig, a run that included opening slots for notable national acts like country hit-makers Rascal Flatts and indie icon Frank Black. The duo is now completing a second self-released disc, Original Sin. Their new material mines themes and images straight from the Old Testament, from the male/female parables of the title track to the Judgment Day blues tale “Me and Satan.”
Haywire Honky Tonk finds the Reverend back in the arms of secular material. The band have recorded some twisted Reverend blues originals like “Sheep-Killin’ Dog” and “Returning to the Scene of the Crime,” but the bulk of their wine-and-women repertoire comes from outlaw country heroes like Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, David Allan Coe and Hank Williams Sr. Not surprisingly, the Rev’s musical muscle in Haywire Honky Tonk is former members of Sonoma County’s bygone outlaw revivalists One Horse Town: Henry Nagle on guitar and pedal steel (now with art-pop band the Spindles); Paul Hoffman on bass (now with emo-rockers the Listening Group); and Jesse Wickman on drums (now owner and house producer at Atlas Studio in Santa Rosa).
“It’s not an exclusive thing,” says the Rev of the material he brings to these two bands. “Honky-tonk music, basically, is good Christian folk who have fallen by the way. That’s part of the drama and torture of all these styles of music. We’ve all fallen.”
The Reverend carries business cards that reference Isaiah 57:15, a passage he carefully selected from the Bible. In that verse, the prophet Isaiah relays the voice of God, saying, “On high I dwell, and in holiness, and with the crushed and dejected in spirit, to revive the spirits of the dejected, to revive the hearts of the crushed.”
That’s the message of renewal in the Reverend’s ministry of rock and roll. “I feel an exciting future for all these types of music, maybe because people are tired and fed up,” he says, before evoking a true Pentecostal fervor. “The world is crazy! It’s crazy! It’s crazy! People really want that old-timey feeling of being transformed by love and forgiveness.”
I believe what the Reverend is saying. I think the King would as well.
The Reverend preaches the good word with Haywire Honky Tonk on Wednesday, Oct. 18, at the Knockout in San Francisco. 415.550.6994. For info on local gigs, go to www.myspace.com/trailsendmusic.
Uproar in Purgatory
October 11-17, 2006
‘If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven, because if my son sits in Hell, then there is no God.”
So states Judas’ grief-stricken mother Henrietta Iscariot in the opening moments of Stephen Adly Guirgis’ rich and rambling poem of a play, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, currently on stage at Santa Rosa Junior College. Henrietta’s fiery words sum up the powerful central question of Guirgis’ play: How can a just and supposedly forgiving God punish those who, if everything on earth happens according to His plan, are only doing what they were created to do? That question is answered many different ways in the play, but is most succinctly summed up early on when one defender simply suggests, “Judas got fucked.”
In a spirited production by director Laura Downing-Lee, the students of the school’s respected theater arts program have clearly been energized by the ferocious intelligence and boldness of Guirgis’ controversial 2005 fantasia on justice and forgiveness. In it, Judas is granted a retrial in Purgatory, and a parade of characters from the Bible and world history–Pontius Pilate, Simon the Zealot, Satan, Mother Theresa, Sigmund Freud–appear to either defend or damn the man who, one night in the Garden of Gethsemane, betrayed Jesus with the world’s most infamous kiss.
Rarely do students have such fresh material to work with (the play debuted in New York only last April), and the large cast meets the opportunity with palpable enthusiasm and furious energy, even if the pacing and the volume–some actors are a bit too soft-spoken to hear–are occasionally a bit off and the play is a bit over long.
Few bad guys in the history of the world carry the stench of wickedness and treachery that cling to the name and fate of poor, damned Judas Iscariot. Depending on whose version you listen to–even the Gospels can’t agree on the details–Judas was either misguided, evil, angry or avaricious, betraying his master for that legendary bag of silver coins. Over the centuries, volumes have been written about Judas; he has been used as everything from a justification for the persecution of Jews to a scary cautionary tale to a symbol of youthful rebellion in an oppressive society. In plays like Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell, Judas becomes the tragic fall guy in Jesus’ plan to sacrifice himself, a faithful friend willing to endure eternal infamy in order to fulfill his best friend’s wishes, the patron saint of difficult choices.
In the dramatically hyperactive mind of Guirgis (Our Lady of 121st Street, Jesus Hopped the ‘A’ Train), it is suggested that Judas was merely misguided, believing that Jesus, messiah-like, would kick-start the revolution once the guards came to get him. Another theory posited is that Judas was mentally ill, leading Freud, when called as a character witness, to observe, “Any God who punishes the mentally ill is not worth worshipping.”
Throughout the play, Judas (played with heartbreaking despair by Daniel Thompson) is mostly catatonic, primarily speaking in flashbacks until a climactic debate with Jesus (Jess Camacho), who powerfully suggests that Judas is, in fact, in Heaven, but unable to believe it because of the depths of his own guilt and anguish.
The bulk of the play is Judas’ trial. His defense attorney is Fabiana Cunningham (Tessa Rissacher), an agnostic resident of Downtown Purgatory with her own issues around betrayal; the prosecuting attorney is the desperately social-climbing Yusef El-Fayoumy (a hilarious performance by Khalid Shayota). Other strong performances are given by Kevin Kieta, charmingly slimy as the straight-shooting Satan, a riveting Daniela Herman as both Mother Teresa and Mary Magdalene, a gleefully profane Mercedes Murphy as the potty-mouthed Saint Monica and a superbly confident Nathan Todhunter as the arrogantly bullying Pontius Pilate. As Henrietta, Ernie Schumacher’s quiet presence is moving.
In the end, what Purgatory’s jury decides about Judas’ guilt or innocence is beside the point. As illustrated by the concluding monologue by jury foreman Butch Honeywell (Matt Cadigan), we are all Judas and, ultimately, our salvation begins or ends with our own ability, or inability, to truly and lovingly forgive ourselves.
‘The Last Days of Judas Iscariot’ runs Wednesday-Sunday, Oct. 11-14, at 8pm; also Oct. 14-15 at 2pm. Burbank Auditorium, SRJC, 1501 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa. Contains very strong language and adult subject matter. $8-$15. 707.527.4343.
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Murder in the Second
By David Sason
Almost as soon as a sensational debut appears, the dreaded cloud of second album expectations begins to loom. Always on the lookout for the “sophomore slump,” critics unflinchingly pounce, condemning a group either for deviating too much or not enough from their successful formula. Currently in the hot seat are Las Vegas quartet the Killers, whose new album Sam’s Town is difficult to fit into either category. The roughly cohesive concept album on simpler, bygone days is certainly a departure for the band in its bid for maturity, albeit a forced one. But it merely modifies their path on 2004’s Hot Fuss, which was a charmingly audacious revival of keyboard-laden, early-80s new wave and post-punk. Instead of infusing elements of everyone from New Order to Duran Duran, Sam’s Town visits music from the previous decade.
The title track opens the album in familiar territory, with towering keyboards leading the slow-building rhythm section before morphing into a pure, Kraftwerk-like synthesizer lick. “I’ve got this sentimental heart that beats,” croons singer/keyboardist Brandon Flowers, before admitting his sophomoric apprehension. “I’m so sick of all my judges, so scared of what they find,” he wails above booming drums and guitar chords. What we find here is more of the early 80s, especially with the line, “I know that I can make it, as long as someone takes me home every now and then,” a nod to early advocate Morrissey.
The time travel begins with the short “Enterlude” that follows, where Flowers blatantly informs us that we’re entering concept land by telling us, “We hope you enjoy your stay.” The solo piano accompaniment recalls Queen, and the Rich Little of modern rock singers gives a brave, decent attempt at the grand high notes of the late Freddie Mercury.
More glam rock influences pervade the album, most notably on “My List,” a song which borrows from the bookends of David Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust album. Beginning with slow, sparing percussion and piano stabs a la “Five Years,” the song ascends into an elegant, gigantic celebration lifted from “Rock N’ Roll Suicide.” “Let me show you how much I care,” sings Flowers in his best, purposely cracking, Bowie-biting voice. While the song holds your attention, the ending refrain reminds a little too much of Bowie’s original, “You’re not alone.”
The Killers also channel arena-rock troubadour Springsteen, especially on the sentimental centerpiece, “Read My Mind.” “I never really gave up on breaking out of this two-star town,” Flowers sings, in similar dashboard-poet style. The song drips with Boss-isms such as car metaphors and mentions of “pulling up to your driveway” and, believe it or not, “the promised land.” The song’s E Street instrumentation and teetering vocal melody, though, make it the record’s most enjoyable.
While Sam’s Town certainly serves its nostalgic motif by subtle and overt sounds of the 70s, it doesn’t fulfill the promise of Hot Fuss. Unoriginality actually seemed endearing in the delicious synth-pop majesty of “Mr. Brightside” and “All These Things That I’ve Done,” two songs that nothing on Sam’s Town comes close to emulating. Ambition is praiseworthy, but album concepts don’t compensate for catchy tunes. And unless they use their talent to write more great pop songs, the Killers could come dangerously close to becoming just another clever lounge act from Vegas.
The Byrne Report
October 18-24, 2006Cathy and Craig Caddell live on the outskirts of Petaluma, surrounded by woods, grassy lawns, wandering sheep, running dogs and inquisitive cats. Cathy is a childbirth educator; Craig works for an information-service company. The forty-something couple have two small children, Sara and Dylan (not their real names). And on July 23, the Caddell's were taken hostage by...
Sex Work
October 11-17, 2006Sex is gross. It's visually gross, anyway, clumsy and unaesthetic to those not involved. No wonder filmmakers typically use either dance or exercise as a metaphor. The actual getting-down, the sweaty, repetitive craziness of it, is on some level visually offensive to the non-turned on--or at least those who pretend not to be. People who chuckled at...
News Briefs
October 11-17, 2006 Filing a McSuit The multinational McDonald's Corp. is now an additional defendant in an ongoing wage-and-hour class-action lawsuit against Robert Mendez, chief owner of seven Mickey D franchises in Sonoma County. "By adding the corporation, we're hoping MacDonald's will realize they too must improve their practices," says Marin-based attorney Karen Carrera, whose efforts on behalf of low-income...
Uproar in Purgatory
October 11-17, 2006'If my son is in Hell, then there is no Heaven, because if my son sits in Hell, then there is no God."So states Judas' grief-stricken mother Henrietta Iscariot in the opening moments of Stephen Adly Guirgis' rich and rambling poem of a play, The Last Days of Judas Iscariot, currently on stage at Santa Rosa Junior...
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