R.I.P. LEONARD NIMOY

I REMEMBER ‘I AM NOT SPOCK’

Temecula, CA – I remember Leonard Nimoy from a lot of things, mostly movies like a lot of people but there was a time when he didn’t want to be remembered as Spock. That would be the time when I met him.

Star Trek had ended its three year run and the cartoon series had also done its first run with the actor’s voiceovers. Nimoy was ready to move on and had written a book entitled, “I Am Not Spock”. It was more than his attempt from being typecast, it was an effort to separate Leonard Nimoy from the character Spock. He had played a successful character on Mission Impossible but Spock was indelible. People saw Nimoy as Spock with or without the ears.

In the years after the series was cancelled, reruns were run every afternoon when Wesley [Memoirs] and I would watch while we burned a couple of trees [joints], laughing our asses off and Monday-Morning quarterbacking on whether ‘Jim’ made the right call or if the alien women Kirk banged were 'pink on the inside'. While we guys wondered about Kirk’s love life the women were swooning over the always rational Spock and wondering about his Vulcan anatomy.

ALASKA LIGHTS UP

420Nurse Summer Rain reporting:

Yesterday, Tuesday Feb 24, 2015, Alaska became the third U.S. state to legalize the recreational use of marijuana for adults, but it was a subdued milestone.

Unlike in Colorado and Washington state, there were no street parties and public smoking displays in Alaska’s biggest cities. But backers of legal pot said the mild reaction was fitting because they are aiming to promote responsible consumption of marijuana as they work with lawmakers during the next few months in preparing its sale.

On this Tuesday, police in Anchorage, Alaska’s largest city, were prepared to hand out $100 fines for people smoking marijuana in public. But officers working the first shift after it became legal at 12:01 a.m. didn’t encounter anyone consuming marijuana in public.

Placing Alaska in the same category as Washington state and Colorado with legal marijuana was the goal of the pro-pot coalition that included libertarians, rugged individualists and small-government Republicans who prize the privacy rights enshrined in the Alaska state constitution. Legalization is expected in Washington, D.C., on Thursday.

FULL VALUE ENTERTAINMENT RETURNS

WHEN THE IVAN'S AWAY, THE BILL WILL PLAY

Temecula, CA – Someday the adults here, certainly the cool ones into music anyway, will sing the praises of how a small out-of-the-way community could birth such a wide range of musical talent, and
of those who brought said sounds to

the youths’ ears like modern Piped Pipers.

Yesterday I was speaking to one of those Pipers, the owner of Full Value Entertainment, Bill Gould, Jr.

“Well since Ivan left the valley, there is a vacuum for presenting new music to the public now, so we are back to fill it. Suite 100 is our first show. It is the CD release event for the band. Spread the word!”

Or words to that effect because my mind was already drifting back through history to Bill’s early days at Madlins through the Java Joz daze and the new talent spotted in the Temecula Music Fest. For a while both Ivan and Bill filled now young adults’ ears with the freshest music to never see radio airplay. Then as if someone flipped a switch, that local music scene died. I then flashed back to the future.

“Our first show is March 7^th at the Broadway Starz Playhouse venue,” Bill said, his eyes sparkling bright, “and there’s more.”

TWO ZIG-ZAGS AND ZOP, RIGHT IN THE KISSER

AFROMAN SLUGS WOMAN ON STAGE, LATER APOLOGIES

Temecula, CA – Artists are artists and as such are sometimes temperamental. Watching the video of Afroman aka Joseph Foreman throw a haymaker without looking and then pick up his solo certainly makes the point of giving a performer his space onstage, especially during a solo when many artists have their eyes closed. It looks as brutal as the football player’s GF getting punched in that elevator. However, as bad as it looks in the vid, you see her getting up, dazed or shocked, then walk off the stage. Afroman’s show was cancelled and the performer was charged with simple assault and released on $330 bond.

Lost in a sea of moral and racially motivated outrage is the fact that Foreman has apologized publicly on facebook and owned up to his mistake. The rapper said he'd seek anxiety treatment and anger management after the assault. Despite the fact Afroman struck a white woman in the heart of Mississippi, this wasn’t a hate crime. Afroman explained that he was feeling queasy about the early show, his rep said Afroman didn’t see the woman climb onstage [security?] and he was startled, plus this is Mardi Gras season. So what does that mean? Simply this. If you have ever been in the South, you know the magic and the strange karma of stuff there.

CLUB COSPLAY – A ROMANTIC TOUCHDOWN

BUFFY BRINGS BLESSINGS, NOT A STAKE, FOR IVAN’S HEART

Temecula, CA – Though it seems fitting as bookends to present this story next, regular readers may be wondering about the hiatus that began on January 18^th. Well Sports Fans, I was signing a petition against GMO salmon online when the lights when out, nuff said. 

Though off the air, I wasn’t out of touch so in the next few days some stories will appear about my off-air adventures with The Baked and The Beautiful but first let’s pick up our story that we last left on ‘1^st Down’. 

Club Cosplay showed a huge turnout of about a thousand happy Nerds in the New Year and press that was covered in the hipster LA BUZZ, the latest entry in a field once owned by LA WEEKLY [still worth a read]. OHM Niteclub housed the scene debut in the major market and the ‘buzz’ generated was to be used to fuel the fire for the House of Blues, San Diego, event just two weeks before the Long Beach Comic Con. But the underlying reason for planning this Cosplay event on St. Valentine’s Day for Ivan Promotions was admiration rather than super hero worship, an admiration that turned to love.