SACRAMENTO, Calif. - A down-and out skid row floral assistant becomes an overnight sensation when he discovers an exotic plant with a mysterious craving for fresh blood. Soon “Audrey II” grows into a ill-tempered, foul-mouthed, R&B-singing carnivore who offers the assistant fame and fortune in exchange for feeding its growing appetite.

One of the longest-running Off-Broadway shows of all time, this spoof of 1950’s sci-fi movies comes to Runaway Stage Productions (RSP) in Sacramento, California.

With an all-star cast - Tristan Rumery as the awkward and unlikely horticultural hero, Amber Jean Moore as the blond bombshell of an assistant, Bob Baxter as the down-on-his-luck shop owner, and Kevin Caravelho as the hilariously sadistic dentist - Little Shop of Horrors will have your sides sore from laughter and surprise.

“The last time this man-eating musical was produced by RSP as a main-stage Broadway show was in the year 2000, and now it is time for this hilarious show to eat its way into the hearts of RSP audiences again.” - Bob Baxter, Producing Director.

Show Dates: Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 2 p.m. July 6-29 at the 24th Street Theatre in Sacramento.

Tickets: $18 adult, $16 student/seniors/SARTA, $12 children - Group Rates for 10 or more. Purchase tickets online at www.runawaystage.com or call the box office at (916) 207-1226.

Runaway Stage Productions is also looking for actors for the upcoming performances of: Jesus Christ Superstar, Snow White, and The Music Man Jr. Audition information is available at: www.runawaystage.com/auditions.html.

Yesterday on 9 June, David surprised me with a trip to the California Capital Air Show 2007, at Mather Field, California, just outside Sacramento. I’d never been to an air show before, and really had no idea what to expect, so we gathered up our cameras, water bottle, and sunscreen, and headed out for the day.

The weather in the morning was actually quite nice, even walking across miles of tarmac at the airport. Parking wasn’t even a problem except for the attendants who weren’t paying attention and so cars basically stopped and waited to be told where to go. We paid $10 to park, then went to the “on-line ticket sales” gate and went right into the field.

There were planes everywhere. Big planes, small planes, massive gargantuan planes, helicopters, cops on horses, cops on bikes, cops on motorcycles, men and women in jump suits, men and women in camo (though 99% male to 1% female)…it was a military extravaganza.

We started out by walking through the static plane area, those being ones that weren’t going to fly for the day, but were on display for people to sit in, walk through, or just generally gaze at. We opted for the latter two - I was standing next to a helicopter and the guy in the jumpsuit told me I could sit in it and such, but I’m not a fan of helicopters and confined spaces, so I just took a picture and moved on.

Then we decided it was time to walk through one of the biggest things I’ve ever seen in my life. These military cargo jets are just incredible. The tail is over 5 stories high, and the interior could house a small country. I was pretty amazed at the technology on the inside of the plane - cables and switches and dials running everywhere. We didn’t opt to stand in line to go into the cockpit, since the line went clear out the back of the plane…and again, confined spaces.

So we moved on to the “hobby” aircraft section, to view some of the planes that people had built or restored to their original spitfire-like condition. These were pretty cool, especially the shiny and shimmery chrome. (with the do not touch this plane sign)

But the features of the day were the flying aircraft - the stunt flying that is. Before the military planes took off for a show (which we did not stay for because 4 hours into the day the blue angels still hadn’t done anything except a sound check which revealed a problem with one of the planes), the stunt planes took flight and did some wild and crazy aerial acrobatics for the crowd, including leaving huge smoke trails behind them as they loop-de-looped and such.

It was fun to watch, but I must admit that it got boring after a while, especially when they basically did the same things over and over again. Impressive, yes, and something that I would never do myself…but still, you can only take so many pictures and videos of planes flying in circles before it’s time for a $6 beer. And so…we had two $6 beers :-).

We continued to wander around and discovered kids climbing on fake rock walls, Navy recruiters testing people to see how many pull-ups they could do, and generally a lot of very overweight people shoving deep fried food into their mouths as they yelled into their cell phones telling people they were at the air show. Good for them.

Check here for more pictures from the California Capital Airshow, and here for Part 1 and Part 2 of the air rescue simulation.

Below is a sample video of one of the stunt planes zooming around in loops over the runway.

On May 19, Cabana Gatherings had a fun and festive afternoon concert with Emily Shore and Irina Rivkin. The ladies showed up mid-afternoon on a mild May day to perform for an eager audience in East Sacramento.

After socializing and some snacks and beverages, Emily took the stage and performed a set, showing off her skills on the guitar. After performing for about 25 minutes, Emily relaxed with the guests while Irina entertained us with her amazing vocal talents and her wicked-cool loop station.

Using a small box on the floor, she was able to create, at one point, up to 7 backup singers by looping tracks over and over again and singing along with them. When we’d seen her perform in David several years ago, she didn’t have this snazzy device, and I have to say, it was the highlight of the performance.

Guests were raving about it after she finished performing - technology won the day! But it wasn’t all about technology when Emily brought out her bass guitar. The sound coming from the cool blue guitar was a rumble you could feel deep in your chest. David even turned the bass up a bit so that everyone could feel the vibrations.

Many thanks to Emily and Irina for making the afternoon memorable, and many thanks to everyone who was able to attend and support independent artists.

Visit Cabana Gatherings for additional images and links to the artists home pages.

And don’t miss the upcoming evening concert with Steve Gary and special guest, The Mystic Cowboy.

This past weekend, David and I went on a photography trip to Land Park and the Sacramento Zoo. We hadn’t actually planned on going to the zoo, but it was there, so we went.

Since I always have completely opposite opinions on everything, I both love and hate zoos. My love for the zoo comes from seeing animals that I would otherwise probably never see in my lifetime. Actually feeling the presence of a snow leopard is so different than reading about them on wikipedia. Seeing the gazing eyes of a Siberian tiger, the thoughtful face of an orangutan, or the munching crunchings of a giraffe who is eagerly devouring a carrot, is what it’s all about.

The part that I hate is that in many zoos, there is simply no space for the animals to live. How can a zebra exercise when their habitat is only 50 feet? They need to run across the plains! How can a burrowing owl (pdf) soar above the skies when they are in a cage the size of my bathroom? They can’t, and that hurts me to see. Animals need space to be themselves, just like we do as humans.

Anyway, here are some of the beautiful creatures at our zoo. You can select them and they will open into full size.

And if you’re interested in seeing what the flamingo’s did as soon as we walked up….view this video:

** Regretfully, we have postponed this event due to some scheduling issues. We will be working with Steve and James to book them during the fall, so please stay tuned for more news about these great performers! **

An Intimate Evening Concert with Steve Gary

Join us for a wonderful evening of music and food with Steve Gary and special guest James “The Mystic Cowboy” Worthington on Saturday June 30 at 7pm. Tickets are now on sale from Cabana Gatherings (www.cabanagatherings.com)

Steven Gary started his songwriting career at age 17. Within a few years he started performing in local coffee shops in the Bay Area and was featured on a local radio broadcast.

Steve moved to Los Angeles where he appeared on 6 albums and 2 single releases as a backing vocalist. Steve performed with a wide variety of legends: Gospel great Jimmy Dorsey; 60’s star Melanie; Classic Rock icon Edgar Winter (at the LA Street Scene); Jazz master Chick Corea; Russian rock idol Sasha Malinin and Australian pop diva Kate Ceberano. He took on song writing, performing and co-producing duties for two musical productions, and one of his songs was also performed by a local choir.

From 1990-2006 he served as the Musical Director, bass player, vocalist, songwriter and guitarist aboard a Caribbean Cruise Ship, working with a variety of top international performers such as Golden Bough, Duncan Lorien, Amanda Miguel, Diego Verdaguer, Johnny Laboriel, Ruddy Rodriguez, Maxine Nightingale, Randall Courson, Tommy Brechtline, John Novello and Billy Sheehan. The ship band also featured one of Steven’s songs at the St Vincent Blues Festival (opening for Oleta Adams) before he returned to the bay area once again to pursue his career as a singer/songwriter.

Returning to San Jose in 2007, Steve has quickly established himself in the music scene here, performing at numerous Bay Area acoustic venues, such as Freight & Salvage, Mission City Coffee House, the Red Vic in SF, and others, as well as larger events and festivals such as the 2007 Earth Day celebration, where he performed at the Jerry Garcia Amphitheater in San Francisco. He has also released is first CD “Eclectic Acoustic” – the title indicating the wide variety of songwriting styles he uses, based on his wide variety of influences, from the folk-rock, country and blues of his younger days to current pop music and his Caribbean sojourn.

Performing with Steve is James “The Mystic Cowboy” Worthington. On any given performance you will find Mystic playing harmonica, mandolin, flute, guitar, clarinet, and who-knows-what-else!

Show time is at 7pm, and guests may arrive starting at 6:30pm to enjoy pre-show refreshments, and are welcome to stay after the show to meet the artists and enjoy our signature snack and beverage service.

We’ll see you at the show!

Sacramento is on fire ladies and gentlemen. Well, not the entire city, I mean this isn’t like LONDON IS BURNING or anything like that. But we’re sure as heck having a big problem at the moment.

A section of railroad basically exploded into flames this afternoon around 5:45pm PDT, with the entire trestle (wooden framework holding up the rail lines) going up into a big ball of blackness that, as you can see, spread its way across the Sacramento area.

The news was all over it of course, breaking into every show they possibly could, and the news anchors beginning a workout of adlibbing everything they were saying. Helicopters flew overhead with live video of the blaze…We heard from railroad reps, and we heard from crew on-the-scene, we even heard from a guy who works at the Sacramento Railroad Museum. We discovered that passenger trains were heavily delays, with impacts to exactly ONE person at the station.

We also watched as hundreds of absolute idiots decided to stop their cars in the MIDDLE OF THE HIGHWAY to watch what was going on, and the even more dense idiots walk up onto the track to watch the fire first-hand.

We watched as brave firefighters hosed the thing down, while trying to get more supplies of water to the area which is pretty remote, and thus has no fire hydrants. (They did a really awesome job BTW…it was incredible watching them work)

Here you can see the massive billowing black smoke coming from the burning pillars underneath the railway. From a distance, it looked like rope light…all in a neat row, sparkling and shining, but then of course you saw the 2000+ foot plume of blackness, and yeah, it’s not really that sexy any more. Bill Thompson, our railroad volunteer who was kind enough to talk to the silly KCRA reporters, gave us details about those wonderful pylons covered in flammable material.

We also heard from the doc, who reminded people not to go into the smoke. Thanks doc. Helpful hint. Glad you stuck around after the 5pm news.

Big excitement. Which we really needed on a pretty dull Thursday. I mean, something had to take the place of no American Idol tonight.