I first met Michael Dunlavey a little more than 34 years ago. His new one-man show of richly textural paintings—of everything from wave-beaten old boats to proudly resistant barns and Native American rugs—opens Friday at Blue Line Arts in Roseville, California (with a reception the next day from 4-7 p.m.
If things go well, this Sunday, November 15, the great artist Wayne Thiebaud will turn 100, the great actor Ed Asner will clock in at 91, the great singer Petula Clark will be 88 and this grating columnist becomes a 70-year-old.
At 17 years old, Jacob No is already a purpose-driven man. He says he’s “always had a passion for serving other people,” which has included his volunteering in soup kitchens both in the Sacramento area and Corona Del Mar, where his parents have homes—and, more recently, for Sacramento Stand Down.
With at least the beginning of the election upon us—you don’t really think it’ll be over by midnight tomorrow, do you?—it might be a good time to think about how many things have gone haywire recently. One of the under-discussed but potentially economy-disrupting issues is worker attitude.
“Renaissance” is a fine name for that period in Europe’s history (roughly the 15th and 16thcenturies, give or take a week or two). But it’s too often used as an adjective for someone who’s adept in several categories of creativity—just as “genius” is the operative term in Hollywood for just about everyone who can string together a sentence, splice together some film and amass enough investors to churn out a hit movie.
Please pardon today’s detour from The Golden State and join me for a cyber junket to my birthplace, whose nickname is The Empire State. And while I usually dispatch these columns from my home in Sacramento, The Big Tomato, today we’re going to zoom in on New York City, The Big Apple.
I’ve always wondered why “Go fly a kite!” was considered a putdown, either in childhood or thereafter. To me, it sounded more like someone suggesting you do something whimsical, energetic and out in the fresh air. To recap, where some heard “Scram” I heard “Have a nice day.”
This past March, just as the world was beginning its pandemic shutdown, Andrew Rogerson still was able to help one of his clients sell a medical-supply manufacturing business for $3.1 million.
“I get a success fee when that happens,” he says. And if the company wouldn’t have sold despite Rogerson’s best efforts? “Oh sometimes I get a thank-you note,” he says in his deadpan, Aussie accent, which somehow can make a situation sound funny rather than frustrating.
Financed in part by generous customers of his Crisp Catering business and currently shuttered Gold Rush Grille restaurant, Joe Thompson has been delivering meals to local hospital workers, First Responders and other front-line workers during the coronavirus pandemic. He also takes meals to people who are very ill or immobile or both—and says when he’s allowed to reopen his restaurant, “We’ll still get those meals to these people. I’m not going to abandon them when our governor says it’s business-as-usual again.”
“I almost don’t care what causes your pain,” Dr. Carl Shin is telling and kind of surprising me—until he completes the thought. “My job is to help you recover from it. So let’s do that instead of dwelling on what caused it to happen.”
