Public Eye

Hello, Please Hold . . .

Think back to when you were calling PG&E to find out when your power might come back on: Did you stop to appreciate what it took for you to get that busy signal? Pacific Bell thought not, so they rushed out a press release to alert us that 44 of the company’s call-processing offices in the North Bay, including 14 in Sonoma County, were forced to switch to emergency generators to keep those phones ringing. The phone company reported double the usual volume of calls on Dec. 12, the day after the worst of the storm, but could not verify how many of those were directed to their fellow utility.

Waiting to Inhale

After being thwarted twice by a governor’s veto, a fledgling coalition of activists and others are working to place an initiative on the November ballot that would legalize the medical use of marijuana. But the efforts of Californians for Compassionate Use have been dealt a serious setback by the San Francisco Registrar of Voters, who ruled earlier this month that many of the petitions being circulated are not legally valid because the text of the attorney general’s summary at the top of the page had not been printed in bold type. “For some reason, that’s very important,” muttered Gilbert Baker, a member of the campaign’s steering committee, who acknowledged the bold-type requirement was specified by state law. “This is a big f–k-up.” The flawed petition was produced by John Entwhistle, head of the campaign’s San Francisco office, who “is under pressure to resign for his incompetence,” said an unusually frank press release from CCU. The campaign has until April 18 to gather 600,000 valid voter signatures throughout the state, and is concentrating its efforts in Southern California. Marijuana has been shown to alleviate suffering in AIDS patients and persons with glaucoma, and bills supporting limited medicinal use of the drug have twice passed the California Legislature, only to be killed by the governor’s pen.

Chat Chit

Having failed to win a network television audience with scripted shows, Caryl Kristensen and Marilyn Kentz will now try improvising in front of the cameras. The Petaluma-based comedy duo known as the Mommies will launch their new venture in April as a daytime talk show on ABC, two years after their NBC sitcom, cleverly titled “The Mommies,” struggled through a year-and-a-half run. So that the new program will not be confused with the earlier bomb, ABC execs have proffered the distinctive title “The Mommies Talk Show.”

From the Dec. 28, 1995-Jan. 3, 1996 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Final Act

Dropping the curtain on the season

By Gretchen Giles

I’m finally getting this May/December thing figured out. It has nothing to do with lovers of different ages finding each other. Nope. It’s much more sublime. You wake up one morning, it’s May. You wake up the next, and it’s December–time to review the year that was, if you can remember the millisecond in which all of the in-between stuff happened.

The happy part of re-reading a year’s worth of columns is in the warm recognition that the vibrant and thriving theater scene that has been so carefully nurtured here in the county has only continued to grow, most spectacularly with the opening of the elegant new Sonoma County Repertory Theatre.

Here then, is a look at what succeeded on local stages throughout the last year.

Beginning alphabetically, Actors Group Playhouse–which unfortunately folded last month–had an uneven year, but scored one really fine production with Ibsen’s A Doll’s House. Director Brian Frishman–who has since moved on to garduate work at UCLA–found his stride, and actor (and acupuncturist) Lynda Harvey reflected like a prism all the complexities of the character Nora and her fight for freedom.

Actors Theatre up at LBC began the year well, with a strong rendition of Jane Chambers’ autobiographical play, Last Summer at Bluefish Cove. Concerning a group of lesbians who meet at a Fire Island type of resort each year, this production featured a strong performance by newcomer Sheila Groves and a rough, affecting portrayal by Janice Ray, who played the dying central figure in the cast. AT also scored a hit later in the year with Mollie Boice’s one-woman portrayal of mad literary wife Zelda Fitzgerald in The Last Flapper.

Main Street Theatre and its Sonoma County Repertory Theatre continue to be the strongest companies in the county, consistently producing high-quality adult comedies and dramas. Eric Cook’s rubbery cross-dressing portrayal in Charley’s Aunt gave shakes of laughter to the upright audience, and the recent production of Bullshot Crummond was as nearly perfect as possible. SCRT–which this September debuted its new downtown Santa Rosa arena theater–has done nothing but fine work, beginning with an absolutely stunning production of Hamlet–both outdoors and in–that was as definitive as any I’ve seen. And those of you who haven’t trotted over with your lunches for the SCR@Noon series are really missing out on a chance to digest inexpensive, original, live theater with your sandwiches. Laugh, cry, and eat: this is great stuff.

The Pacific Alliance Stage Company has produced some maligned plays that really deserve greater credit. Both of their knockouts were directed by PASCO favorite Peter Nyberg, who comes up from Carmel to pace the stage. Painting Churches–concerning an aging couple who neglect their grown daughter in favor of their conjugal affections–featured excellent work by William McKereghan and Patricia Silver as the married couple so involved in one another that they’ve barely been able to notice their daughter’s life. Also compelling–though I didn’t agree with the director’s focus–was the recent production of David Mamet’s sexual power play, Oleanna.

My biggest regret of the season was that there wasn’t enough column space to write a real review of the Santa Rosa Players’ production of Oliver! and that I had to content myself merely with a glowing caption under a photo of the principals. Those who saw this musical know that it was the Players at their finest.

Summer Repertory Theatre is one of the county’s treasures, a training ground for aspiring actors statewide, and last summer’s The Secret Garden is one example of why SRT has become a generational favorite. With an outstanding professional set design and a well-rehearsed and vibrant cast, this production was as all-around pro as community theater gets.

Shakespeare al fresco was a big hit around the county, and one of the most exciting productions was the Valley of the Moon Shakespeare Company’s presentation of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Transplanting it in the mission era and adding Native American spirits to the oaks around the stage, director Michael Oakes added a unique depth to the magic of the story, and Eric Thompson’s Puck was an athletic dervish of delight.

Here’s looking forward to the new slate of plays that begin in January.

May all of your resolutions come true.

From the Dec. 28, 1995-Jan. 3, 1996 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Trauma & Drama

Photo by Janet Orsi

Murder, muddy waters, and murky politics top the year’s local news stories

While most of us quietly went about our lives this year, the events in Sonoma County often took on biblical proportions. The raging, rain-swollen waters of the Russian River raged over its banks in back-to-back floods. The publicity surrounding the Richard Allen Davis murder trial spared the accused killer from his day of judgment. Sex scandals rocked a Catholic parish in Santa Rosa. And, last spring, violence rang out in a series of unrelated killings that saw even sunny, serene Sonoma Plaza erupt into a deadly shooting gallery.

Here is a look back:

January

Ex-Pomo Chief Loses Lawsuit
Jeff Wilson, the ousted Mak-ahmo Pomo chief who sought to create a $38 million casino-style resort south of Petaluma, loses his bid to regain control of his Cloverdale band after U.S. District Court Judge Spencer Williams rejects Wilson’s lawsuit claiming that he is the tribe’s rightful leader. Last August, the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs ousted Wilson, saying that Wilson had no legal claim to his title and explaining that the agency had made “an administrative error” in recognizing Wilson in the first place. Wilson contested that ruling.

Mullins Takes over as D.A.
J. Michael Mullins assumes the responsibilities of district attorney for Sonoma County, inheriting a vastly different criminal landscape than did his predecessor, Gene Tunney, did when he was elected to the job 20 years ago. Mullins, the No. 2 attorney at the District Attorney’s Office for the preceding 13 years and Tunney’s hand-picked successor, won his office in June on a platform of experience. He promises to improve the domestic violence record of the District Attorney’s Office, but runs afoul of local women’s rights groups within six months for reneging on that promise.

Court Upholds Implant Ruling
The U.S. Supreme Court upholds a $7.3 million judgment against Dow Corning won by a Sebastopol woman who blamed the drug manufacturer for the painful effects of a silicone breast implant. The decision to reject an appeal from the corporate giant ends a six-year legal battle launched by Mariann Hopkins, 51, a former college secretary who had the implant procedure in 1976 after a double mastectomy for breast cancer. Her case became the first of its kind to reach the high court and led Dow Corning to reveal that it had withheld from the public incriminating studies that showed the implants were potentially harmful.

Migrants Shun Flood Relief
The big losers in the recent flood of may be local migrant families, many of whom are shunning relief services provided by the Red Cross and Salvation Army, as well as county, state, and federal agencies, according to officials at the state Migrant Education Office. “People are understandably apprehensive after the passage of Prop. 187 and statements made during the elections that if they seek state or federal help during their times of need there may be repercussions in terms of immigration,” says David Grabill, directing attorney for the Santa Rosa-based California Rural legal Assistance, a non-profit advocacy organization. In the Guerneville area, hundreds of migrant families have been affected by heavy rains and flooding. Many of them work legally in the local vineyards, but are afraid to apply for assistance because one or two family members may be illegal immigrants.

February

Bowing Out Gracefully
Sipping coffee, nibbling on bagels and cream cheese, and peeling homegrown tangerines, a diverse collection of west county environmentalists, specialty farmers, progressives, educators, lawyers, writers, artists, real estate agents, a dusting of Russian River Republicans, and even a garbage man or two gathers at 5th District Supervisor Ernie Carpenter’s Graton home as the popular local pol announces that he won’t seek re-election at the end of his fourth term nor campaign for a statewide office. Instead, he’s retiring from public life. As requested by their host, no would-be candidate declares at Ernie’s home (“not under my roof”). Most of those assembled, middle-aged representatives of west county’s progressive constituency, express fears of a split or fragmentation that may allow an unknown reactionary candidate to snatch away the seat. Those listening intently include a smattering of potential candidates: Eric Koenigshoefer, Santa Rosa attorney and former west county supervisor, whose tenure preceded Carpenter’s election; Sebastopol City Councilwoman Anne Magnie; Mike Reilly, executive director of West County Community Services; and Heidi Gillen, field representative for 1st District Assemblyman Dan Hauser.

NWP Deal Moves Ahead
The Golden Gate Bridge District board of directors agrees to purchase the 140-mile Northwestern Pacific Railroad right-of-way, ending more than a decade of squabbling between Marin and Sonoma counties and the district. The $27 million deal, approved by the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors, will be paid for with federal funds that could otherwise be slashed in the next round of Capitol Hill budget cuts. The deal should bring the dream of light-rail transit to fruition, supporters say. Critics remain suspicious of the district’s commitment to rail transit.

SOLO Is DOA
A chilling wind is blowing across the Santa Rosa Junior College campus. Five months after the federal Office of Civil Rights awarded $15,000 each to three SRJC students who lodged sex discrimination and sexual harassment complaints about a campus online service, the journalism professor who created the computer forum has shut it down and is facing a new challenge to his job. SRJC instructor Roger Karraker, faculty adviser to the student-run campus newspaper, Oak Leaf, has pulled the plug on SOLO (Super Oak Leaf Online), an electronic bulletin board system that last year became the center of a national debate about how freedom-of-speech laws apply to cyberspace.

Davis Trial May Stay
The deputy public defender representing accused murderer Richard Allen Davis says that he may withdraw a motion to move the trial out of the county. Barry Collins, attorney for the confessed killer of Polly Klaas, has indicated in papers filed this month that he wants prospective jurors to give a detailed account of their knowledge and views on the highly publicized 1993 kidnap-murder. In the past, Collins has insisted that his client cannot get a fair trial in Sonoma County. He planned to subpoena several witnesses, including local reporters, in the hope of proving that adverse reports about Davis could have prejudiced potential jurors.

March

Report Warns Fish Endangered
Wild steelhead in the Russian River are severely threatened with extinction, according to a confidential National Marine Fisheries Service report leaked to Washington Trout, an environmentalist group in Seattle. Federal wildlife authorities have recommended that the species, along with coho salmon, be listed as threatened or endangered because of habitat damage caused by logging, farming, gravel mining, overfishing, and increasing water diversions. The report indicates there is strong scientific evidence to support a move to protect the fish.

Photo by David Licht

River of despair: Last winter’s floods, below, shattered lives and caused more than $31 million damage, making them the most costly disasters in the county’s history.

Flood Damage Tops $31 million
White House Chief of Staff Leon Panetta tours the Russian River area after President Bill Clinton declares the region a federal disaster area. The latest bout with Russian River floodwaters has caused more than $31 million in damages throughout the county, according to preliminary estimates by the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services. The loss to owners of houses, apartments, mobile homes, vehicles, and other private property is set at $24.8 million. That includes about $6.5 million in damages to farm equipment and the county’s soggy grape vineyards, which also are threatened by bacterial and fungal diseases. The loss to public property–including roads and bridges–is placed at $6.5 million. The January floods caused more than $51 million in damages in the county.

Supes OK Justice Funds
Faced with the specter of overcrowded jails and four impending murder trials, the Sonoma County Board of Supervisors agrees to spend an extra $330,000 to alleviate conditions at the juvenile hall and beef up criminal investigations by the Public Defender’s Office. Supervisor Tim Smith characterizes the county’s criminal-justice system as “a runaway train.” Law enforcement and court expenses in the cash-strapped county last year totaled $97 million, or 27 percent of the overall budget. The trial of confessed killer Richard Allen Davis, accused in the slaying of Polly Klaas, is expected to cost $1.2 million. It is slated to start June 19. No trial date has been set for Pelican Bay State Prison parolee Robert Walter Scully and Brenda Kay Moore, accused in the March 29 murder of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Trejo, or Joan Larae Carrafa, charged with the March 27 murder of an armored-truck guard in Sonoma.

Land Swap Foes Speak Out
About 60 opponents of a controversial plan to swap the 270-acre city-owned Lafferty Ranch atop Sonoma Mountain for nearby Moon Ranch–a former dude ranch owned by millionaire Peter Pfendler–flock to a town hall meeting to speak out against the deal. Three appraisals of Moon Ranch have put its value equal to or below the amount Pfendler claims he paid for it. Pfendler wants $1.6 million in addition to the city’s pristine ridge-top ranch. Critics of the deal want the city either to put Lafferty Ranch on the open market or to create a park and grant public access to the rugged land.

Chinchilla Case Dismissed
Following months of negotiation, a groundbreaking case pitting a national animal-rights group against a Freestone chinchilla rancher concludes when charges are dismissed against the rancher before going to trial. Both the prosecutor and the defense claim victory in the case while animal-rights activists say that, despite their efforts, the chinchillas–the small, docile rodents whose soft coats make them favorites among furriers–were the biggest losers in the court battle. The case made headlines when People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals accused ranch owner Jose LaCalle of “genital electrocution” of a chinchilla, after a PETA undercover agent captured the procedure on videotape, under the guise of wanting to learn more about the technique.

Photos by Janet Orsi

Fallen hero: More than 1,500 law enforcement officers turned out last March at LBC for a memorial service to slain Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Trejo. His widow, above, is consoled by family members.

April

Deputy Gunned Down
At a memorial service that draws 1,500 law enforcement officers from around the state, Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Trejo, 58, is remembered as a quiet, calming influence within the local law-enforcement community. In the end, he met a violent death the night of March 29 while trying to stop an armed robbery on Highway 12 outside of Santa Rosa that some say wouldn’t have happened if Gov. Pete Wilson had signed a bill last year reforming the state’s troubled parole system. That bill, passed by the state Legislature but vetoed by Wilson, would have required Department of Corrections guards to transport potentially dangerous inmates at the Pelican Bay State Prison near Crescent City–home to the most violent offenders in the state prison system–back to the county where the offenders will be paroled. State parolee Robert Walter Scully, Trejo’s alleged killer, was released from the Pelican Bay facility just five days before the murder after serving just 12 years of a 27-year sentence for armed robbery and stabbing an inmate. He was classified as “a public safety concern,” given the highest surveillance rating in the parole system, and ordered to report within 48 hours to a parole officer in San Diego. He never showed up.

May

Riggs Water Plan Riles Critics
Local conservationists blast an amendment to the federal Clean Water Act that would allow Santa Rosa to use wastewater to restore wetlands along Laguna de Santa Rosa and increase wastewater discharges into the Russian River. That amendment, approved by the House of Representatives and included at the request of Rep. Frank Riggs, R-Windsor, would make Santa Rosa exempt from Army Corps of Engineers regulations. It is part of a controversial reauthorization of the landmark environmental law that critics say will effectively gut the tough regulations.

Quake Study Shocker
A newly released seismic map of the Bay Area reveals that the Sonoma County Office of Emergency Services disaster headquarters, county administration offices, and all three of the county’s major hospitals rest within a swath of land that will suffer extreme damage in the event of a major earthquake along the Rodgers Creek Fault. The study, released by the Association of Bay Area Governments, shows that the degree of damage will exceed previous estimates. It raises the specter that Memorial, Community, and the newly built Kaiser hospitals could be knocked out of commission by a big temblor.

June

Online Firm Sold
A Sebastopol-based map to the ether-worldly realm of the Internet has been purchased by the largest commercial computer network in the country. America Online announces it will pay $11 million ($2 million cash and $9 million in stock) to acquire the Global Network Navigator, an online publishing center that organizes Internet information for computer users. GNN was developed by O’Reilly and Associates of Sebastopol in 1993, and recorded some 2 million requests for information in December of last year. It is expected to become part of a new Internet access service to be launched by America Online later this year.

July

Davis Trial Begins
Jury selection opens in the trial of Richard Allen Davis, the confessed killer of Polly Klaas, with Judge Lawrence Antolini vowing to keep the media in check during the six months of proceedings. Already, the judge has made a series or rulings that will govern the presentation of evidence during the trial, but those decisions have not been made public and will remain secret until the actual trail begins, probably in October. The county has budgeted $1.23 million for the trial, nearly half of it expected to pay for Davis’ defense, and another $300,000 for court security measures.

Four Newspapers Sold
The two oldest weekly newspapers in the county are locally owned again. They are among four community papers sold when the Walnut Creek-based Lesher Communications an-nounces it had severed ties with Sonoma County, selling off the Sebastopol Times and News, Russian River News, Healdsburg Tribune, and Windsor Times.

August

GOP Targets Woolsey
Rep. Lynn Woolsey lashes out angrily against Republican fundraisers for sending out a “wanted” poster listing 28 Democratic lawmakers, including Woolsey, for “siding with and abetting President Bill Clinton’s big government, pro-tax, anti-tax, anti-family, anti-military agenda.” Twenty-two of the 28 targeted are women, minorities, or Jewish, prompting critics to charge that the poster is racially motivated. Project 28, organized by the National Republican Congressional Committee and co-chaired by Rep. Bill Paxon, R-N.Y. The NRCC published the FBI-style poster depicting liberal Democrats who have voted against at least seven of 10 provisions of the Republican Contract with America. In a published statement, Paxon denies any wrongdoing.

Gingrich Visits Grove
House Speaker Newt Gingrich, R-Georgia, the leader of the nation’s conservative Republican forces, lands at Sonoma County Airport for his visit to the annual encampment of politicos, industrialists, and intellectuals at the Bohemian Grove. Gingrich, a staunch supporter of government subsidies for tobacco companies and other corporations, flew into town aboard a jet owned by the United States Tobacco Sales & Marketing Co., manufacturers of smokeless tobacco products. At the club’s gate, demonstrators protest so-called corporate welfare payments.

Land Swap Deadlock
Councilwoman Mary Stompe is expected to cast the tie-breaking vote in favor of a controversial land swap of Petaluma’s Lafferty Ranch for Peter Pfendler’s Moon Ranch if it comes to a vote in the next few weeks. She said that greater accessibility to the 381-acre Moon Ranch, a former dude ranch, helped her make the decision. Stompe announced last week that Pfendler has agreed to preserve Lafferty Ranch “in perpetuity” as open space. The other six council members are split 3-3 on the issue. The city hosts an open house at the ridge-top Lafferty Ranch, which is usually closed to the public.

Church Settles Sex Suit
Catholic Church leaders agree to pay $450,000 to a man who says he was sexually molested numerous times 14 years ago by a priest at St. Eugene’s Cathedral in Santa Rosa. The man, now 28, will receive the settlement against Father Austin Peter Keegan, who is believed to be living in Tijuana, Mexico. He is one of two North Coast priests accused of sexually molesting two boys in unrelated incidents.

U.S. Electricar Cash Injection
After a stormy financial year, U.S. Electricar has announced a $2.3 million influx of cash. The investment should pump new life into the once sluggish electric-car manufacturing company. Meanwhile, company officials have negotiated an agreement to settle unpaid bills with its largest suppliers.

September

Pomo Bands Feud
One year after federal Bureau of Indian Affairs officials stripped ex-chief Jeffery Alan Wilson of his leadership of the Cloverdale Band of the Makhamo Pomos, a group of his followers–apparently with casino ambitions of their own–is trying to regain control of the tribe. The group, which held an unsanctioned election, is attempting to unseat Pomo elder John Santana, recognized by BIA officials as the legitimate leader of the band. It reportedly is led by Patricia Hermosilla, Santana’s niece and a former Wilson supporter. Wilson, who had sought to build a Las Vegas-style casino one mile south of Petaluma, spent millions of dollars of investors’ money on the failed project.

October

Aquifer Tests Falter
The early results are not terribly encouraging in the city’s tests of a mechanism to store treated wastewater underground. A preliminary report on the test results, presented to the Santa Rosa Board of Public Utilities recently, finds that the geology in the test areas would limit the amount of subterranean storage available per well and require pressurized injection wells.

Parolee Bill Vetoed
For the second time in two years, Gov. Pete Wilson vetoes a bill that would require the state to escort dangerous felons who are released from Pelican Bay State Prison, near Crescent City, back to their home county. Wilson contended the bill, by Assemblyman Dan Hauser, was inflexible and “represented prison micromanagement at its worst.” The governor did sign a companion measure by state Sen. Mike Thompson tightening the notification requirements when parolees fail to report to their parole officers within two days. Both bills were prompted by the killing of Sonoma County Sheriff’s Deputy Frank Trejo, who was allegedly shot by Pelican Bay parolee Robert Scully five days after Scully left the prison.

Restaurants Busted
A fistful of local restaurants are fined for underpaying their employees, following a series of investigations by federal labor officials. Payments are ordered for a total of 255 workers who were underpaid for overtime or paid less than minimum wage during regular shifts. Among the restaurants cited are Caffe Portofino, La Gare, John Ash & Co., Café Lolo, Equus, Narsi’s Hofbrau, Mixx, Café des Croissants, Gary Chu’s, Omelette Express, Musashi, and Ristorante Sienna. Fines ranged from over $24,000 for the China Room to just $100 assessed against J. J. North’s Grand Buffet.

Facing the music: After lengthy delays and a turbulent jury selection process, a Sonoma County Superior Court judge rules that confessed killer Richard Allen Davis will stand trial next summer in San Jose.

Davis Trial Moves to San Jose
Sonoma County Superior Court Judge Lawrence J. Antolini orders the Richard Allen Davis murder trial moved to Santa Clara County. Antolini says the next court date will be Feb. 5 at 9 a.m. in Santa Clara County Superior Court in San Jose. Jury selection may not begin until the summer or even later. Reading from a prepared statement, Antolini said an analysis of a jury-selection survey conducted in four counties did not in his eyes show a significant difference between Santa Clara and San Diego counties on bias against Davis.

November

Supes Select Sutter
As expected, county supervisors vote unanimously to negotiate a lease agreement for the operation of Community Hospital with Sutter Health of Sacram-ento. Faced with a choice between two closely matched bids from Sutter and HCA/Columbia, the largest health-care corporation in the nation, the supervisors opted for the smaller, more local firm, even though the financial terms offered by Columbia were slightly better. Hospital trustee Nancy Dobbs is the lone dissenting voice on the dais. Noting that the process of seeking a corporate partner had “frustrated the public tremendously,” she urges the supervisors to develop a contingency plan, just in case things don’t work out with Sutter. The board’s vote comes at the end of a second public hearing on the matter, during which most speakers again asked the supervisors to seek out an alternative to “affiliating” with a large corporate entity. Meanwhile, opponents garner enough petition signatures to put the issue on the November 1996 ballot.

December

Timmons Cases Settled
Nine of the ment who had accused Father Gary Timmons in a civil suit of molesting them while they were boys reach a settlement with the Catholic Diocese of Santa Rosa, which will pay the men $830,000 and extend an apology. The settlement, reached out of court, also says the diocese “has resolved to redouble its efforts to prevent sexual misconduct by persons employed by or associated with the diocese.” As the settlement is being reached, a state appeals court rules that the 1994 law that was being used to charge Timmons with molestations that occurred as far back as 1971 could not be applied retroactively. However, new charges are filed by local prosecutors, including one count involving a 13-year-old boy whom Timmons–a once popular priest at St. Eugene’s Cathedral–took camping in Bodega Bay six years ago. Also prosecutors in Mendocino and Humboldt counties are weighing possible additional complaints against the 55-year-old priest.

From the Dec. 28, 1995-Jan. 3, 1996 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

New Year’s Eve Happenings

By Gretchen Giles

If traditional dance-party New Year’s Eve celebrations are more your cup of bubbly, there are plenty of choices. In case your mother forgets, let us remind you that most barkeeps will be happy to call a cab for alcohol-challenged drivers, and that beginning the new year with a headache doesn’t bode well karmically for the future.

The biggest new tradition is Johnny Otis’ way-cool bash up at the Luther Burbank Center. With two sets, a killer horn section, party favors, food, drink, and the ubiquitous more, this is one-stop New Year’s Eve central. Chairs have been pulled out of the way in the main theater so that danceability is at a premium high, and after five decades or more in the biz, Mr. Otis is what you might call a professional. He and his band know how to make the evening move. LBC, 50 Mark West Springs Road, Santa Rosa. $35-$40. 546-4600.

Over in Healdsburg, the Villa Chanticleer will be ringing in the New Year quite literally, with music of all kinds blaring from opposite ends of the building. Sponsored by the American Legion Post of Healdsburg, the Black and White Ball is looked forward to by all who’ve ever experienced it. Featuring a full-course dinner, this year’s event boasts the Cajun bon temps of the Gator Beat Band in one dance room, with tunes spun by DJ Derek Walters in another. Revelers are encouraged to dress in the stark opposites of light and dark, and the whole thing is for a good cause–helping to fund the Fourth of July celebration next summer. Villa Chanticleer, 415 North Fitch Mountain Road. $30. 431-7346 or 433-2102.

For a quieter celebration, head over to Murphy’s Irish Pub in Sonoma, which will begin the evening with the traditional American music of Old Hat from 7 to 9:30 p.m., and then segue into the soaring harmonies of Solid Air until midnight. There’s no cover, and the slow draw of the Guinness can’t be hurried into the mug. All is as it should be. 464 First St. East. 935-0660.

In Petaluma, the Mystic Theatre will rock with the sounds of the Pulsators, a local favorite among good-time-party bands. The Pulsators are hauling along a special guest, so the evening promises to be one of more surprises than just whom you’ll end up kissing at midnight. The show begins at 9:30 p.m. and costs $10. 21 Petaluma Blvd North. 765-9211.

Randy Rowlands’ club Heaven, housed every Sunday night at the Funhouse, plans a huge bash for the year’s end, featuring the inimitable Rowland Review Grand Illusions show, dancers, party favors, and food. This alternative-lifestyle club urges patrons to pull out their best party clothes for a night of elegant and not-so-elegant fun. Tickets are only $10 in advance–but $17.50 at the door–so it behooves you to be organized and start the new year off right. 120 Fifth St., Santa Rosa. 544-6653.

Magnolia’s is happy to announce the end-of-the-year reunion of one of their most popular house bands of the ’80s–SAS and the Boys–featuring Sishawna Fessenden, Bill Gannon, and Jim Fox. This dance band will be providing a jumpin’ jive down memory lane for those who followed them in the last decade. 107 Fourth St. in Railroad Square, Santa Rosa. 9 p.m. $8-$10. 526-1006.

The Old Vic welcomes the cowpunk sounds of the Feud, self-described “chicken coop misfits” whose brand of rock and rockabilly gets you on the dance floor faster than a turkey in the straw. Or something like that. 731 Fourth St., Santa Rosa. 9 p.m. $3. 571-7555.

From the Dec. 21-27, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Comedy, Loose and Jangly

Don’t tell Will Durst that political satire is dead

By Gretchen Giles

It’s the rainy end to the San Francisco mayoral race, and political comic Will Durst is having the last laugh. Having run for mayor of the city himself in 1987, Durst knows what it feels like. “I got 2 percent of the vote, came in fourth out of 11, and spent $1,200,” Durst chuckles. “The three guys who beat me spent a million dollars apiece, so on a dollar per vote basis, I am the mayor of San Francisco.”

Would he ever consider doing it again? “Never, ever, ever,” he avers. “I wanted to walk a mile in their shoes, and I found out that their shoes, well, they have to step in a lot of crap, and you have to change shoes every night, and I’m not willing to do that.

“Nobody who can be elected should be,” he adds, in characteristic style.

As for Willie Brown’s recent victory, Durst shrugs, “Well, it was kind of obvious. It was a photo finish. [Incumbent Frank Jordan] got a picture of himself taken in the shower, and he’s finished.

“Most politicians are figureheads; Jordan was a hood ornament.”

For the past 11 years, Durst has been a pivotal figure on the San Francisco stand-up comedy scene, sending off zingers such as “If God wanted us to vote, he would have given us candidates.” He laughs at his own joke as it is read to him over the phone. “I like that one,” he quips.

He has been making himself and others laugh at themselves and their politicians at concert halls and Bay Area comedy clubs–including the landmark Holy City Zoo, which he once owned. He muses wickedly about national and local politics, intersperses football metaphors into his copy, and just generally picks on soft-jazzer Michael Bolton.

“It’s very unfair of me, I know,” he sighs half-seriously. “He’s so easy. But there’s something that really bothers me about him. A friend has David Copperfield. I have Michael Bolton. We all have our guy.”

With monthly columns in The Progressive and Funny Times magazines, a daily column–“Daily Dose of Durst”– for Working Assets on the Internet, and a nationally syndicated radio show, and as the host of the PBS labor journal “We Do the Work,” Will Durst is a busy man. “I’m still in high school,” he jokes. “Unless it’s due Monday morning, I don’t start it until Sunday evening after the Sullivan show.”

Taking a break from these daily-grind gigs, Durst likes to limber up in the clubs. He’ll bring his stand-up routine to a pre-New Year’s bash at the Raven Theater on Dec. 28.

Coming of age in San Francisco in the nervy days of comedy–at the same time as Robin Williams, Bobby Slayton, and other leaders of the ’80s stand-up revival–Durst is one of the few purists who remain in the area. Unlike those who have left their home for the more lucrative comedy killing fields of the Los Angeles nightclub scene, Durst–a Midwesterner by birth–has remained adamantly attached to his adopted home and chosen profession.

“I just really like getting on a stage and trying to make people laugh out loud on purpose against their will.”

But don’t get him started on what he terms the “watered-down sweater-comic pretty-boy hack thieves who are using stand-up as a greased chute to a sitcom gig as the wacky neighbor next door on ‘Who’s the Dufus?'”

One senses that Durst has an opinion.

“When I started out,” he says, serious now, “comics did comedy because they had to. There was no money in it. I mean, people gravitated toward it just like they gravitated toward California. You know, the plates shifted, and everything loose and jangly kind of fell into comedy. We were outcasts, and misfits, and round pegs in square holes, and we had to do comedy. It was our only outlet.

“When it became very successful, everybody saw it as a shortcut to getting cast in a sitcom, and I think that a lot of the soul went out of comedy. I think a lot of it was replicate. So I think that the shakeout is not that bad,” he says, referring to the current stand-up comedy backlash.

“Things aren’t getting better, but I think that a lot of people are leaving comedy for other fields that more befit their talents, like squeeze-molding and fork-lift driving.”

Comedian Will Durst, with his wife, Debbie, and her partner, Mike, and comic Steven Kravitz will appear on Thursday, Dec. 28, at 8 p.m., at the Raven Film Center, 115 North St., Healdsburg. $10. 433-5448.

From the Dec. 21-27, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Don’t Waste the (Waste) Water

Local agriculture sees new value in Santa Rosa’s effluent

By Bruce Robinson

If Santa Rosa’s treated wastewater is a valuable resource that should be put to beneficial use, then the beneficiaries of that reuse should be willing to shoulder a share of the associated costs. With that as their basic premise, two representatives of the Sonoma County wine industry are advancing a proposal that would commit local agriculture to participate in a “reuse system” that could significantly reduce the public costs in developing a workable, long-term regional wastewater disposal program.

“There’s a fundamental rightness to reusing this water,” said Laurence Sterling, an attorney whose family owns Iron Horse Vineyards near Forestville, “but you can only get so much money out of ratepayers to pay for rightness. You’re not going to get the City Council to go along with a very expensive program just because it’s the right thing to do.”

Sterling and Bob Anderson, of United Winegrowners for Sonoma County, have quietly been canvassing selected members of the local agriculture community to gauge their willingness not only to make use of the reclaimed water, but to provide pipelines and on-site storage themselves, thereby reducing the infrastructure costs of the regional project. Sterling and Anderson predict that, by distributing the wastewater to the many areas that want it and utilizing the existing reservoirs at the farms, the need for a huge centralized storage basin can be greatly reduced or possibly even eliminated. “If you don’t need a huge dam, boom!–you’ve cut $60 million out of the project,” Sterling crowed.

From the agriculture end, the concept has not been a hard sell. “We are interested in wastewater,” said Angelo Sangiacomo, a grape grower with vineyards in both the Sonoma Valley and the Lakeville flats. “We’d be willing to pay a reasonable amount to get it.” Moreover, he continued, “there are other growers in the area who are interested, too.”

Although the reclaimed water is expected to be used primarily for irrigation, grape growers can reap additional benefits from it, including frost protection, washing the vines to prevent mildew, and watering cover crops between the vines, such as mustard, fava beans, oats, or clover. With such multiple uses, vineyards could easily absorb far more than the one-half acre foot per year that Santa Rosa has used in its calculations, Sterling concluded.

Furthermore, Anderson added, the timing of those uses fits neatly with the city’s peak needs. “They need to get rid of the water the most in October, and that’s when the vineyards can use it the most.”

“We’re certainly interested in that, very interested,” said Santa Rosa assistant city manager Ed Brauner. “If there are a significant number of people that could put up a significant amount of storage, we could bring down the cost, but it needs to be pretty large.” A pilot project, to be built by Gallo near Cotati, will have a reservoir capable of holding 80 million gallons, but Brauner cautioned, “That does not have a significant effect on our long-term costs.”

Paul Vossen, agriculture specialist at the UC Cooperative Extension office, says there are strong economic incentives for west county apple growers to seek out the water. “We have data that show very clearly,” he said, “that you can at least double the yield of irrigated vs. non-irrigated apples,” plus get bigger fruit, which draws a better price per ton. Also, the introduction of ample water to the orchards that have been dry-farmed for generations would allow the planting of cover crops between the trees, reducing erosion and maintenance costs. And, with the orchards profitable again, the pressure to subdivide portions of them would be greatly diminished. Vossen predicted that apple growers and other farmers will gradually embrace the idea of using the reclaimed water, once they see the benefits demonstrated in actual practice.

At the Sonoma County Farm Bureau, Executive Director Judy James said voluntary participation in a reuse system could be a strong positive alternative to the threats of condemnation that the city has been using so far. “If people are stepping up to the plate and saying, ‘Yes, we will incur this cost to get the water,’ and it’s all voluntary and they’re not being told they will lose their land or they will have to use so many gallons of water above their needs, then we’re all for it. I would think that would be a very workable solution, especially if [the farmers] can justify the cost with increased crop values.”

Currently, the Santa Rosa plains farmers who irrigate with treated wastewater are paid by the city to do so, and are also required to use predetermined amounts of the effluent, regardless of their actual agricultural water needs.

Sterling and Anderson stepped forward with their reuse system concept after a host of Sonoma County interest groups made a collective statement last week denouncing the “misleading cost figures” recently made public about the wastewater disposal options under study by Santa Rosa. The group, which calls itself the Stockholders’ Consensus on Reuse, or SCOR, includes 28 members representing environmentalists, farmers, and agriculture, business, and planning professionals and has been quietly meeting twice a month since last June.

“After six months of intensive study, we are convinced that this region is going to face a serious water crisis within the next 20 years,” said Santa Rosa attorney Bill Malliard, “and that the use of reclaimed water from the city of Santa Rosa is at least part of the answer to avoiding that crisis. It is bad long-range planning to throw it away.” Malliard dismissed the high costs being circulated for the various potential wastewater projects as “engineering for the courtroom, not for the building of economically viable projects.”

“Remember, land with water is much more valuable than land without water. Sonoma County could rival Napa in production and quality if there were sufficient water,” added south county rancher Tom Bachman. “In this county’s open spaces, you can provide water and grow crops, or you can throw the water away and grow homes.”

Sterling, a candidate for 5th District supervisor who also attended the SCOR session, said their concerted call for expanded reuse prompted his efforts to put together a strong proposal with formidable political support to present to Santa Rosa’s policymakers. “We’ve got to deliver a strong message to the decision-makers that this will work, and we’ve got to hand it to them on a silver platter,” he said. “Then the pressure is on them not to turn it down.”

From the Dec. 21-27, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Tuning Up

The two musical sides of pianist John Allair

By Bruce Robinson

On stage, John Allair is a keyboard-pounding, blues-yelping, boogie-woogie practitioner of the first order. But inside his modest Petaluma home, his musical preferences are from another world and time altogether. A baroque concerto wafts from a tape player in the kitchen into the front of the house, where a sectional sofa faces hundreds of vintage record albums dominated by Bach, Scarlatti, Mahler, French organ recitals, and obscure 17th-century keyboard music.

Buried near the top of one stack is a well-worn T-Bone Walker blues disc, too.

It’s an apt metaphor for his time these days, as Allair spends the majority of his hours at the keyboard working through classical scores, while his public playing is upbeat, extroverted entertainment.

He has even modified a venerable, well-traveled Hammond B-3 to simulate a church organ in its own special room, where he delights in the challenges of Bach organ trios and like works. Allair can also slip into a Jimmy Smith-styled jazz groove at the snap of a finger and says he doesn’t need to practice that. “I spent a lot of time practicing boogie in my earlier years,” he explains. “I play a lot now, so I don’t need to [practice].”

Growing up in Oakland, Allair heard boogie-woogie in his home neighborhood, and around age 12 he felt the urge to join the rhythmic rumble himself.

Choosing his favorite records–Allair cites Fats Domino as an early influence, along with Jimmy Smith, Miles Davis, and, later, the inspired eccentric Bach interpreter, Glenn Gould–he would sit at the piano, playing along with them over and over until his mother’s patience wore thin. Thus was a self-taught pop pianist born.

“I never got into classical until I was about 20” and studying composition at San Francisco State, Allair elaborates. “Part of the deal was that you had to study classical piano.” And in addition to discovering a new arena for his love of music, Allair says his collegiate experience also yielded a crucial lesson he still applies: “They showed me how to practice.”

Gravitating northward later, he began gigging in Marin and Sonoma clubs, including a 1973 date in San Anselmo, where he opened for Van Morrison. They struck up a musical friendship. “We played a few gigs, and then I didn’t hear from him until 1980,” Allair recalls. “We had an informal jam session at the Inn of the Beginning, and that was it.

“I was in [his] band, and we started making records and going out on tour.”

The tours took him back and forth across Europe, around the States, and to other parts of the world, accruing memories that range from the stage at Montreux, Switzerland, to streets filled with tanks in Belfast and “Checkpoint Charlie at the hotel. That was scary.”

His association with Morrison lasted for almost seven years, Allair says. “He gets people he likes and keeps them around.” Of the bandleader’s prickly personality, “I got along with him great, but I can see where he could be considered difficult,” Allair says diplomatically. “I still hear from him.”

One such call two year ago drew Allair to a Sausalito studio, where Van was recutting his teen anthem “Gloria” with legendary bluesman John Lee Hooker. Allair’s on the track, too.

Nowadays, however, it is his own music that is foremost in Allair’s professional efforts. Earlier this year, he released his first self-produced solo recording, John Allair Cleans House–a collection of stomping New Orleans-flavored blues interspersed with jazz interludes. Meanwhile, he has been a highly visible presence on the local performing scene, including a piano summit with Stu Blank and teen phenom Sasha Smith at the Sonoma County Blues Festival last summer.

“I just wanted to get something out,” he says of the disc. “I had all these songs lying around . . . “–a notion that gives rise to one possible interpretation of the album title.

Recorded in Cotati, the sessions were “very democratic,” Allair recalls. “We just winged it, made it up as we went along, pretty much.” The liner notes credit production to “John and anyone else who had an idea at the time.”

Even with his recently raised profile, Allair still relies on piano tuning for his “day job,” while performing and recording. Spending time with his two daughters occupies the rest of his day’s time. “I don’t plan to retire,” he jokes. “All the piano tuners and players I know, they die at the keyboard, and that’s what I plan to do, too.”

John Allair performs at Magnolia’s, 107 Fourth St., Santa Rosa, on Dec. 29, opening for Joe Louis Walker and the Boss Talkers. Tickets are $6 in advance or $8 at the door for the 9 p.m. show. 526-1007.

From the Dec. 21-27, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Public Eye

The Anti-Grinch

“I’ve never done anything I enjoy more,” says Gene Crozat, the instigator of the merry band of “meter beaters” who have once again taken to the streets of downtown Santa Rosa, determined to stay a step or two ahead of the city’s parking patrols. The owner of G & C Auto Body, Crozat has been bankrolling the elfin crew for six years now, earning the enmity of the city and the affection of a city-full of shoppers. The eight meter beaters began their seasonal duties last Saturday, and will continue through Dec. 23, spending $600 to $800 a day in small change to ward off parking citations for the unwary. “They’re actually getting pretty good at it,” Crozat says of his current crew, which includes a number of repeat student workers. “They’re getting on their walkie-talkies to stay ahead of those gals.” As a lighthearted way of expressing his contempt for city hall, Crozat says, “You can’t have more fun for $600 a day.”

Be Prepared, cont.

A planned emergency information forum, set to be held in Guerneville last Wednesday, was canceled on one day’s notice when the first heavy storm of the season triggered flood warnings. “It was a judgment call as the river rose,” said David McGahee, a social worker for Project Recovery, one of the sponsoring agencies. The meeting, to provide information about “services that may or may not be available in the event of another flood” and “how to prepare for and respond to the next disaster,” according to a flyer announcing it, will now be rescheduled.

Battle Stations

Monica Marvin has issued a call to arms in her declaration of candidacy against Rep. Frank Riggs. The Democratic challenger paints the Republican incumbent as “a general in Newt Gingrich’s army,” who “has taken his marching orders from Georgia, not from the people of the 1st District.” After blasting Riggs at length, Marvin’s initial campaign salvo comes out unabashedly for education, fair taxes, and affordable health care, all in a single sentence. The final paragraph of her two-page written assault reveals that Marvin is a former school teacher turned attorney who lives in St. Helena. Red alert!

Let There Be Lights?

As the days get their shortest, and that holiday we keep hearing so much about gets closer, colored lights and other seasonal decorations are appearing just about everywhere we turn. Everywhere, that is, but at city halls. Through the central core of Sonoma County, municipal headquarters manifest small showings of holiday cheer inside, where the public employees toil, but offer scant Yule spirit externally. Windsor’s Town Hall does have painted windows, and there is a decorated tree in a corner of the smallish lobby at Rohnert Park’s City Hall, but there is zippo outside there, just like Cotati, Petaluma, Healdsburg, Cloverdale, and Santa Rosa. “It’s probably because there’s no money to fund it,” confided one city worker. Yet away from the freeway corridor, Christmas cheer blooms in colorful lights outside Sebastopol’s City Hall, at least now that the power is back on. Over in Sonoma, not only is the upper half of their City Hall alight, but in the Plaza there is a decorated Hospice Tree that is also ringed with plywood panels painted by local schoolchildren. “We’d like to do more,” said a Sonoma staff person. “but people always mess it up.” That’s why there are no lights on the lower half of City Hall.

Felled Giant

The fierce storm that last week blackened the North Coast and sent PG&E spin doctors whirling also toppled a landmark tree in west Sonoma County. The familiar giant oak– with a painted yellow ribbon encircling its trunk–that stood at the corner of Furlong and Occidental roads west of Sebastopol is gone. “It was like watching the goddess be upturned and taken away,” observes Occidental merchant Charlyn Stetson about the removal of the fallen oak.

From the Dec. 21-27, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
&copy 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.

Ghost Writer

Photo by Robert Foothorap

Spectral appearance: Amy Tan stumps next week for local public school libraries.

Bay Area author Amy Tan talks about fame and phantoms

By Gretchen Giles

It’s 11 o’clock on a bleary December morning in South Carolina and Amy Tan is just getting oriented. After nearly two months traveling across the nation to promote her latest novel, The Hundred Secret Senses, Tan has lost track of herself. “Purgatory is one long airplane trip with only memories of hotel rooms,” she moans lightheartedly over the phone from her hotel room. “When I got up today, I kept thinking, where am I? What city am I in? It was first thing in the morning and I was actually standing up–awake–in the room, trying to figure out where I was.

“It’s like punishment for writing a book.”

But Tan is taking her punishment gamely, traveling coast to coast on press junkets and readings. On Wednesday, Dec. 20, she’ll find herself as close to her San Francisco home as she’s likely to get, standing on the stage at the Santa Rosa High School Auditorium, giving a reading sponsored by Copperfield’s Books to benefit local school libraries.

This writer of such popular fiction as The Joy Luck Club and The Kitchen God’s Wife now has her name emblazoned in type larger than the title across the cover of her latest work. Couldn’t Tan just bow out of the promotion game for a while, and let the book sell itself? “Maybe it’s that old Chinese guilt that makes me unable to say ‘No, I’m not going to do it,'” she answers reflectively. “In the past, I didn’t do much [promotion].

“But this time, I felt very vulnerable, and because it was the third book, I thought, ‘Oh, maybe it will be a terrible book,’ and they were saying to me that we really need to flog this thing to get it going,” she laughs.

Hovering at the top of the bestseller list, The Hundred Secret Senses shouldn’t need much flogging to capture an audience. Concerning the lives of two half-sisters–Kwan, who is straight from China, and Olivia, an American with a Caucasian mother–The Hundred Secret Senses explores Tan’s best-loved themes of family love and cultural identity, as well as delving into the underworld of ghosts, named “yin people” by Tan. Kwan can commune with them, and over the course of the novel Olivia and her estranged husband, Simon, come to shed their doubts about otherworldly guests while rediscovering their love for each other.

Tan says that for her, The Hundred Secret Senses answers “a question about love, unconditional love. I thought, ‘This is a story about sisters and the about the peculiar relationships of families,’ but as I was writing I realized that the kind of love that Kwan was providing was this unconditional love that felt very comforting to me, and I thought that part of me is always looking for that. Somebody who seems sort of annoying because they’re intrusive and care about everything that’s happening in my life,” she laughs, “but who continues to give this ceaselessly and without expectations of anything in return.”

What also came up was the slow realization that her fictional character wasn’t the only one experiencing ghosts. “The word ghost itself is so very tainted with assumptions and negative connotations that you’re whacked out if you believe that such things exist,” she says briskly. “But when I was about two thirds of the way through writing this book, I really felt that I couldn’t deny any longer that I get help from somewhere, and I don’t know how to describe this. The best I can do is to call them yin people.

“That’s not a Chinese expression at all,” she chuckles. “I just made it up. ‘Yin’ means invisible or shadow. So, when I was writing The Joy Luck Club, for example, there were scenes in there that I thought came from my imagination, but were very strange to me.” One of those stories was a fictionalized account of her grandmother’s life, in which Tan changed her grandmother’s status from first wife to fourth–making her less a wife than a concubine–and had the character kill herself, rather than dying in the noble and unfortunate circumstances related to Tan as a child.

“When my mother read that, she was amazed,” Tan says, her voice growing in volume as her dog–who travels with her–begins to bark in the background. “She said, ‘How did you know that your grandmother really was the fourth wife? How did you know that she killed herself deliberately?’

“And you know, that could be coincidence,” Tan says in a confidential tone. “But there were other details that my mother says I couldn’t possibly know. My mother would always say, ‘You’re not Chinese, you’re American. You don’t know these things, so my mother [Tan’s dead grandmother] must be telling you these things.'”

Tan has said in print that The Joy Luck Club was written for her mother. Is she still writing for her mom? “This book not really so much,” she answers, unconsciously adopting the convoluted English she uses to write for the Chinese voice. “I wrote this book with the idea that it was for all of my friends who had died, actually. So it was originally dedicated to all of my yin friends.”

After helping a friend through an illness, Tan changed her mind.

“I dedicated the book for Faith, because it was about having faith,” she says simply.

Beginning her literary career as a freelance business writer for such technical firms as IBM and Apple computer companies, Tan has seen her notoriety grow in six short years so that some library catalog computers now use her name as an example for looking up an author. Has she gotten used to being Amy Tan, the celebrity?

“I have a public persona, and what I do with it now is to have fun with it,” she answers. “I used to resent feeling that I was giving away bits and pieces of myself–that my privacy was being invaded–but now I happily give away this part of my persona which is just the fun part. I used to dread the readings, and go home and gnash my teeth, and now I just do it and it’s over. I forget it and I just go back to the non-persona, the private persona, which can be fun too. I don’t take it seriously. I know that that name is out there.

“At times when I don’t want to be bothered with that name, when I’m buying underwear or dandruff medication and someone says, ‘Aren’t you Amy Tan?,’ I just look at them and I say, ‘You know, I’ve had other people who thought that too,'” she laughs. “I don’t lie, but it’s like, today I’m not. Or I’ll just look at them and say, ‘Really, is that what you think? I’ve had other people ask me that too. She is so old! Do you know how old she is! Give me a break!'” Tan, who is 43, cackles over the phone. “See, then I have fun with it, and I don’t feel put out about it. You know, the weirdest thing I’ve ever seen about [my own celebrity] is seeing my name on Cliff Notes.

“And that was like looking at an obituary–Amy Tan and Thomas Hardy.”

While Tan owes her success as a writer in great part to being able to lovingly lift the rice curtain and allow rare glimpses of Chinese life and culture, she assents that it is her gift as a storyteller that has given longevity to her career.

“I think that I got the storytelling primarily from my father, as much as from my mother,” she says. “He was a Baptist minister and his idea of quality time with his children–since he worked seven days a week–was to read his sermons aloud to me and see what I thought and if there were any words I didn’t understand. His sermons were like stories, they were very personable. Stories from my mother came more naturally, and I’d listen as she and my aunts sat a table covered with newspapers, shelling fava beans or chopping vegetables and gossiping about the family, and going on for hours and hours about some little detail that they found disgusting in some relative or friend,” she relates with a laugh.

“But what I find kind of amazing is that I’m rather blind to a lot of things that are happening,” she confesses. “Especially flirting things that are going on. There’s a certain stupidity about me in observing things. If I were writing about me as a character, I would characterize me as really dumb.

“But I notice other things,” she says thoughtfully. “I notice behaviors that have to do with sadness, or hidden things, or secrets. I think that we have different skills about what we observe.

“I think that the other reason that I’ve become a storyteller is that I was raised with so many different conflicting ideas that it posed many questions for me in life, and those questions became a filter for looking at all my experiences and seeing them from different angles. That’s what I think that a storyteller does, and underneath the surface of the story is a question or a perspective or a nagging little emotion, and then it grows.

“Conflicts. Tragedies in life,” she concludes, beginning to list her own biography. “Difficulties. A mother who was depressed. A father and a brother who died. Being the only Chinese girl in a school. Moving every year. Graduating from a private school in Switzerland among rich people and not being rich.

“You know, those are the things that make you either psychotic or a fiction writer.”

Amy Tan will read from and sign The Hundred Secret Senses on Dec. 20 at 7 p.m. as part of Copperfield’s Books School Library Book Drive. Buy any book on a school library’s wish list and receive a free ticket for the event. Santa Rosa High School Auditorium, 1235 Mendocino Ave., Santa Rosa.Tickets will be available at the door for $15. 823-8991.

From the Dec. 14-20, 1995 issue of the Sonoma Independent

This page was designed and created by the Boulevards team.
© 1995 Metro Publishing and Virtual Valley, Inc.