HOSTING AN OPEN MIKE...

It appears I’ll be hosting the Open Mike at the Bay City Arts Center Saturday, July 10—eight days from now. Up to me, I presume, to both round up entertainment and publicize the event. The BCAC traditionally has a “featured performer” that’ll play for half an hour (everybody else gets 15 minutes), usually in between the kids and the adults. I wonder if that’ll have to be me?

The “featured performer” normally is, or has some connection to, the Artist of the Month; last month’s A.O.M. was potter Brian Johnstone, and the “featured performer was Brian and a cello-playing friend. July, the Artist of the Month was going to be the BCAC board and staff (since a lot of us are artists)—so the “featured performer” at the open mike (the same evening as the A.O.M. reception) ought to be board and staff, too. It would be fun to put together a completely impromptu band for the occasion. I know I’ve got some people out of town, but BCAC’s executive director is a classical pianist, and one of the board plays fiddle (or violin—I’m not sure which) and one plays guitar (jazz, I think). What could one do with a band like that?

I want to encourage people from the Friday Night Group to come, and folks who play or have played at the Tillamook Library and the Garibaldi Pub. Something I’d like to institutionalize—it happened almost accidentally after the last open mike—is a general jam session after the show, which all the musicians would be encouraged to stick around for and participate in.

The other “I’ve got a week to put this together” item is the Garibaldi Days music. Our entertainment meeting is also July 10. I’d like to count on having Deathgrass and the three middle-school rock bands that played last year; if each band could play for an hour, that’d be four hours of music. There are two other groups I’d like to rope in as well, if they’re willing—but one of them, I know, doesn’t have much of a PA system. Everybody else, I think, including Deathgrass, is coming with their own PA.

By (or at) the entertainment meeting, I want to know who’s playing, and for how long; once we’ve set times, I’ll make posters and do what other advertising I can—we’ll have only two weeks before Event Day. If Coast 105 radio has put DJ Tommy Boye back on the air by then, I ought to be able to snag a moment on his Morning Show to promote the event. I don’t know if the Lions have any money they can throw at advertising, but we would have the ability to run one ad (all we’d have time for) in each of the local papers before Event Day. I expect we’ll have to do promotion of the music separate from the Garibaldi Days program guide, which (if they follow the schedule I recommended last year) should be already printed and “on the stands” before our entertainment meeting ever takes place. Of course, I’m not the one doing the program guide this year, either.

I’ve spent this week helping teach beach art to kids (15 of them, aged 5 to 12), which has been fun; mostly, I’ve just followed directions, plus done the heavy lifting and run the power tools and washed dishes. I have managed to do the Tom Sawyer Thing with almost every activity; I’ll start doing something, whether it be ripping paper, cutting plastic, unbraiding yarn, or dishing out papermaking glop, and I’ll immediately have assistants wanting to help. I’ve characterized it as “team-building,” and presume it’s a holdover from city manager work.

I do have one job interview coming up (July 22, to be an interim city manager over in the Valley) and wonder if I’ll get called for an interview to be Phoenix city planner—the job I had, along with being city manager, three years ago. There is apparently another island in Alaska looking for a city manager, too, that I want to apply for. And I may get to do a little more work for the Census while I’m waiting.

The “Pig Wars” video has been watched by 133 people in two days, according to YouTube’s statistics. That’s not “gone viral” by any means—it’s more like “gone head cold”—but it’s nice that it’s gotten a little attention.

Joe