DAVE WIELENGA DISCONTINUES  BLOG FOR FULL-SERVICE WEBSITE GREATERLONGBEACH.COM

Dave Wielenga, just this minute formerly of Redistricted! and a talented group of collaborators announce today the debut of Greater Long Beach—a full-service website grown from very deep local roots … and the pooled efforts and experience of the area’s very best journalists.

Together, Greater Long Beach intends to provide something … well, GREATER:
GREATER, as in a Long Beach that is reported, investigated and explained with intelligence, diligence and fearlessness.

GREATER, as in a Long Beach that is explored and celebrated with expert coverage of arts, entertainment and recreation, as well as insightful looks at its people, culture, lifestyles and social issues.

GREATER, as in a Long Beach that is connected to satellite cities–suburbs from Seal Beach to Cerritos, Bellflower, Lakewood, Compton and Downey to San Pedro–through coverage that  tracks their particular orbits and their influence on one another.

GREATER, as in a Long Beach that is improving and ascending in both big-city and small-town ways—the natural outcome of a free flow of information through first-rate independent journalism, reported quickly but explained clearly, with necessary objectivity and reasoned perspective.

AMONG THE STORIES ON GREATER LONG BEACH RIGHT NOW:
 
Ellen Griley’s  BLANCHE DEATHEREAUX: QUARTERBACK PRINCESS OF LONG BEACH ROLLER DERBY: “Some people just can’t go up to someone they don’t know and hit them or flip on top of them,” says Sarah ‘Blanche Deathereaux’ Scanlon, the team captain and jammer for the Retro Rollers of the Long Beach Roller Derby. “That’s what got me excited once we actually started looking like roller derby players.”
 
Bill Pearl’s editorial A WAVE SO BIG NO BREAKWATER COULD STOP IT: It was a wave so big no breakwater could stop it. It had been building for nearly 10 years, and when that wave crashed through the City Council Chamber on Tuesday night, it swept aside years of stale excuses as Long Beach’s elected representatives finally faced up to how much those excuses had cost this City.
 
Dave Wielenga’s SECOND+PCH + DEVELOPERS + ENVIROS + COUNCILMEMBER = BEER & POLITICS: The latest pivot point in the development of Long Beach—the proposed replacement of the tired, old SeaPort Marina Hotel with the high-rise Second+PCH hotel, residential and retail complex—will be the next topic of debate at Beer & Politics.
 
Susan Jacobs’ BACK AT MY ROOTS, NO HAIR MEANS NO BAD HAIR DAYS: I’ve returned to my roots, literally: I’ve just had my hair shaved off—gone, no más. As a result, I am happy, nappy and finally free from the drama that I’ve allowed to big-foot its way back into my life for the past several years. I’m back where I belong after trying it all, again.

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Greater Long Beach is inspired by the 10-years-and-counting legacy of LBReport.com, the city’s first legitimate news outlet on the World Wide Web, and informed by the ahead-of-its time hip and humor of the District Weekly. In fact, much of Greater Long Beach’s local news coverage is propelled by Bill Pearl’s nuts-and-bolts dispatches from LBReport.com. Greater Long Beach’s reach into investigations, entertainment, profiles and sports is generated by its publisher, Dave Wielenga, whose wide body of work at the Press-Telegram, OC Weekly and District Weekly has spanned all those categories.

INFORMATION                                    ADVERTISING

Dave Wielenga                                        Terry Jensen

(562) 879-5498                                         (562) 743- 1285

DaveW@GreaterLongBeach.com           TerryJ@GreaterLongBeach.com

BY MELISSA BOTEACH & SOPHIE MILAM

COMPTON BULLETIN

Most children jump for joy when the final bell rings on the last day of school. For them, summer means freedom. It means camp, vacation and popsicles. But summer also means hunger and stagnation for too many American children. Schools begin letting out over the next week, and many children are facing a summer of skipping meals or consuming the cheap but empty calories that contribute to the nation’s child obesity epidemic.

 More than 31 million children benefit from the national school lunch program, with 62 percent receiving free or reduced-price meals. But only one in six of these kids will receive a similarly subsidized summer meal during the summer months. READ MORE

THE NEXT FRONTIER: Space Center's revelations include include how to take a dump in space

FROM ERIC PIERCE / DOWNEY PATRIOT

Eight months after presiding over its grand opening, Jon Betthauser has been fired as executive director of the Columbia Memorial Space Center in Downey, where city officials complained about poor fundraising and the fact that the center is not even fully operational yet.

“The bottom line is the center is currently average and it should be exceptional,” said Scott Pomrehn, a deputy city manager who has assumed Betthauser’s duties. “It really needs to be outstanding.” READ MORE

DAD WITH ASSISTANT, c. 1950

BY LOUISE CUNNINGHAM

This is for everyone whose father wasn’t Robert Young—you know, the 1950s TV dad on “Father Knows Best,” the dad everyone wished they had. Instead, we got … well, I got an alcoholic mess of a smart, well-read, first-to-wear-Bermuda shorts (with black socks and shoes) in 1959 dad, who died young. I got lucky. He called me Lucky.

“Lucky, you’re doin’ good,” he’d say, and 36 years after his death at age 62, he still does—presumably while sitting on my right shoulder, up near my ear, which explains why I can hear him so clearly. He never explained why he called me Lucky. Nobody did. I never knew.

But it made me—the younger of his two girls—feel special. I loved my dad and hated him, as growing girls are wont to do. I know now that he was human, with way more frailties than most. He wasn’t like those men who went to work every day, maybe went to church every week, went to the school play, paid the bills and were there when the kids needed them.  But it doesn’t mean that my father wasn’t worthy of a “Best Dad” trophy. And I miss him like crazy on Father’s Day.

My dad quit high school in the 11^th grade to help support his parents and six brothers and sisters. That’s what the oldest child in the family did in 1930, during the heart of the Great Depression. My dad sold shoes–then and for the rest of his life.  He supported his family but was never a success to himself.  He leaned on his younger daughter to bring home that trophy.

I always wanted to write and he encouraged it. Even in the eighth grade we collaborated on my first short story, “The Brass Door Knob Mob.”  It was never printed anywhere. God, how I wish I had a scrap of that piece to read about the gangsters we concocted, who were trapping people in their homes with no door knobs.  It was dreadful, no doubt, but it was me and my dad sitting on the steps of the garage together on a Sunday afternoon, reading our piece. Those were tricky days, trying to keep him sober and interested in things other than oblivion.

Later, after his death, his youngest brother told me, “Your dad was the smartest man I ever knew. And, he was the best big brother ever. He spent money he earned to buy me something to wear to high school. I had one of the first new styles ever–a jacket with a zipper in the front.” Later my dad sent this brother a necktie while he was fighting in the Pacific in WWII – because everyone was supposed to have a Christmas tie. The “after shave” lotion he sent didn’t hurt much either, if you know what I mean.

When we are young and angry we don’t realize how we’ll feel about those closest to us as years go by. How we wish we had one moment with them to tell them what they meant to our lives. It’s a lesson to those who still have that chance. Mend that fence. Send that card. Hug that man. Happy Father’s Day, man.

FAIR IS FAIR, RIGHT?

BY REBECCA SCHOENKOPF / FOURSTORY.ORG

Remember last week when I said we would talk about parks today? Oh, I had so much opining to do, and you … you were going to listen!

But that was before I got jury duty, and you … you, but of course, got it with me. Now! Everyone knows I love jury duty—I do! Doing my civic duty gets me all tingly and happy, and if I could wear my “I Voted” sticker all year long without looking like a homeless who doesn’t change her clothes, I would. Voting and jury duty in the same week? The French have a name for that, and it is “hog heaven.”

And so we got a courtroom, and a voir dire, and an almost-unheard-of one-day trial, and it was the stupidest case you’ve ever seen in your long life of seeing stupid cases. There was our judge, welcoming us with Dr. King’s quote about the moral arc of the universe bending towards justice—lovely!—and in our case, “justice” was some simpering lunatic chick suing a perfectly wonderful young man who didn’t do a thing wrong. Young lady, we will bend the moral arc of justice all over your ass! READ MORE

BY PETER THOMPSON

Subject: “I don’t like music I haven’t heard before”
 
Yeah, someone really said that. We wish we had her name so we could attribute it. But instead, we held her up to ridicule by writing the quote on the infamous felt letterboard that greeted each soul who entered the hallowed grounds of Middle Earth Records in Downey.

These were the ’70s, the peak vinyl years, and Middle Earth was the place to go to feed your music addiction. Punk landed early here, finding fertile ground among the prog, rock and folk freaks who made up the staff. The Ramones made an in-store appearance here. Middle Earth was the home store of the Blasters, as well as Richard and Karen Carpenter, and bands passing through L.A. made a southeast detour to Downey just to search the imports. (And our parents thought Downey was a SAFE place to raise their kids!)

Today, 30+ years later, we’re searching out those who either drew a paycheck from Middle Earth or simply wasted away their youth and hard-earned cash on vinyl, magazines, and other “things” we sold back in the day. For more information, check out http://www.facebook.com/middleearthrecords

WHAT: A Tribute to Middle Earth Records featuring The Blasters
WHERE: The Echo, 1822 Sunset Blvd, LA 90026
WHEN: Saturday, June 19, 2010; doors open at 6:30
FOR MORE INFO: attheecho.com

Probably time [for Mathews] to give it up; Richardson was eminently beatable. The “lost” campaign mailers story sounds a little fishy to these ears. / HOWARD X

Rachel, time to put your incredible talent to work on a fact-based novel about the Eternal Candidate. Or a film. Maybe you could get the Mathewsmobile to get in and promise its owner royalties to go toward the next campaign. Plenty of material. / KATE K.

I hope this means Mathews will stop parking that eyesore of a people mover—covered in half-assed “detailing” extolling his virtues—in the most inconvenient places in town. The worst was when he was parking it on Bellflower Blvd., right at where it bottlenecks near the YMCA. The second really bad spot creaed a major traffic hazard on 7th Street near Park. Good riddance! / LB CITY GIRL

 JUNE 13, GREGGORY MOORE’S REVIEW “IF YOU SEE ONLY ONE PLAY EVER AT THE INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATER, MAKE IT ‘A SHAYNA MAIDEL’”

Citizen Journalist Quote of the Day—Pretty Girls and the Holocaust: “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, and today is a gift; that’s why they call it the present.” (Source: Eleanor Roosevelt 1884 — 1962) That quote is included in a solicitation letter from the Neptune Society regarding their pre-need cremation plans. I opened the letter minutes before reading Mr. Moore’s post. / DWIGHT K. SNIDER

 ICT’s venue, formerly called The Center Theater, is now referred to by the same as the company: International City Theatre. The Terrace Theater is a 3,000-seat hall that houses ICT along its back side, with ICT wedged between the Terrace and the main hall of the Long Beach Convention Center. Same address (300 E. Ocean Blvd.) but two entirely different, and separate, venues. / ERIC MARCHESE

 JUNE 10, DAVE WIELENGA’S “‘RIDING BIKES WITH THE DUTCH’ AT THE ART THEATRE: IS IT BETTER THAN KOBE-HATING?”

I know it is hard to believe, but not everybody cares about the Lakers. / JVIALE

 I have happy memories of going to the Art Theatre in the 70′s. We used to sneak in booze, read sub-titles of French films and make out in the dark. It was fun being in existential despair. Now, no longer young, I’m still in existential despair, but it’s no longer fun. / JOE MACK

 JUNE 6, DAVE WIELENGA’S “ONE WOMAN’S RESPONSE TO THE SECOND+PCH ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT”

Lisa Rinaldi isn’t alone in questioning why the city is allowing these challenges to SEADIP. And if folks are arguing that SEADIP needs to be updated or “modernized” to reflect the community’s vision for South East Long Beach, well then, get busy. Until we get an open, community-driven and meaningful re-evaluation for SEADIP the only redevelopment that will be allowed on that corner is defined by SEADIP right now. And that’s commercial use, low-rise (35′ maximum) and low-density (30%+ open space). Thanks to Ms. Rinaldi and others for reading that dreadful DEIR, doing the math, and holding City Hall accountable / GORDANA

 Nature has her own ‘Sea-Dip’ plan for disposing of all these projects, no matter how law-conforming the would-be investors claim to be or how economically clever they think they are. Within decades, projected permanently risen sea levels will SEA-DIP the entire project area (and much else of LB’s Lower East Side besides) under tidal waters. Traffic impacts will shift largely from land-cars to boats. Nature’s own Sea-Dip plan reflects the overwhelming economic commitment and power of past-years’ and today’s governments and big corporations (including entities like the Port of Long Beach) to more and more world-wide industry and commerce and resulting greenhouse gas emissions and climate-change effects. / JOE WEINSTEIN

AT THE ICT THROUGH JULY 3

BY GREGGORY MOORE

I haven’t particularly enjoyed the plays put on by the International City Theatre (ICT). Some of this is simply script selection—whoever is doing the choosing has very different taste than I—and some of it is a sense of what makes for effective theatre that is different than mine.

But I’m happy to say that the ICT’s production of A Shayna Maidel is unlike any show I’ve seen there. Barbara Lebow’s script deftly displays both emotional depth and architectural tightness, while director Shashin Desai and cast rarely miss capitalizing on either.

A Shayna Maidel (Yiddish for “pretty girl”—not an inspired title for this play) centers on the 1946 reunion of sisters Lusia (Liza de Weerd) and Rose (Laura Howard). The two had not communicated since their father, Mordechai (Larry Eisenberg), emigrated to New York City with Rose 17 years earlier, leaving Lusia in Poland with their mama (Julia Silverman, solid in a role that is properly thankless).

If you have even a passing acquaintance with 20th-century history and a short-term memory good enough to remember the terms “Yiddish,” “Poland,” and “1946″ in the preceding paragraph, you probably already know that Lusia and mother get caught up in the Holocaust. Setting aside a needless but extremely brief 1876 prologue, the play opens just as Mordechai informs Rose that he’s found her sister, who is due to arrive in four days and will be staying with Rose in her apartment (kudos to the ICT set designers, who are always good).

The effectiveness of what unfolds comes mostly from the emotional eddies born by the flow of a plot that isn’t about giving you anything surprising in the broad strokes. Father (Mordechai) and daughter (Lusia) show a perfect resemblance of businesslike manner as they compare notebooks on the fatal fate of just about every family member they had. It’s in the tense silence the actors let hang in the air after Lusia finally confronts her father about his failure to send for the women he left behind when he had the chance. It’s in the sudden, understated finale, powerfully touching because no more takes place than is necessary.

There are two minor problems with the script: we’re a little fuzzy on the details of why Mordechai left his wife in the first place, the status of their relationship, the how/why of their arrangement to separate the sisters, etc.; and there seem to be some time issues, like the number of years ago the emigration would need to have taken place to line up the details of the backstory (the press release says 15 (definitely wrong), my notes say 17, but it probably needed to be at least 19 for things to add up). But these solecisms are easy to forgive when you’re listening to dialog that comes off as natural enough even when Lebow is obviously going for pithy (“If you had no one, you were dead. If you had someone, you had to live so they could live”) or sowing thematic seeds (e.g., the importance of lines of descent). She even tosses in some Act Two recurrences that don’t play out as forced (a man on a horse, why Lusia refuses to wear a coat).

Some of the production details are a little less forgivable. In prior shows Desai has often proven heavy-handed, and at times he can’t help himself here—such as with some clichéd sound cues (do we really need nightmarish music during nightmares?). A huge problem early on is the way he has the actors laugh—as if they’re caricaturing laughter, as if people laughed differently 64 years ago. (Thankfully, we’re pretty much spared that in Act Two.) But Desai certainly deserves credit for getting the rhythm right, and for seamlessly orchestrating Lebow’s choice to quick-dissolve character accents when transitioning into (day)dream sequences.

Aside from the aforementioned problem in Act One, the cast is spot-on from top to bottom. If the spotlight belongs to anyone, it’s de Weerd, who is equally convincing conveying Lusia’s suffering and sadness, gratitude and anger, stubbornness and overwhelm. It’s a ranging role, and she’s equal to all of it.

Eisenberg’s character is the most dangerous to play; it would be easy to stereotype this prototypical strong-willed Jewish patriarch. But Eisenberg’s Mordechai is a distinct individual, something we see most strongly in the separate, particular dynamic he has with each of his daughters.

One of the treats of Act Two is the expanded views we get of Howard’s Rose and of Luisa’s husband (Charles Pasternak) and childhood best friend (Erin Anne Williams)—a turn that’s equally a tribute to the author and the actors. We probably aren’t surprised that Rose displays more depth as things progress (and Howard handles it perfectly), but we wouldn’t have guessed that Pasternak and Williams would get the chance to shine as much as they do. It’s part of what makes the dramatic arc of the play so satisfying.

I attended A Shayna Maidel opening night, and the International City  Theater (a fantastic space) was about half-full. That’s too bad on a number of levels—especially because if in your life you were to see one and only one ICT production, you probably could not do better than this version of a play that got its first run at the ICT in 1992. “We wanted to reprise one play from our archives in celebration of our 25th Anniversary [sic],” says Desai in the press release, “and this beautiful play kept calling to me.” Good call, sir.

A SHAYNA MAIDEL INTERNATIONAL CITY THEATRE  • 300 E OCEAN BLVD • LONG BEACH 90802 • 562.436.4610 • ICTLONGBEACH.ORG • THURS-SAT 8PM, SUN 2PM • $32-$42 | THROUGH JULY 3

MICHAEL BAUCH & SON FILMING IN AMSTERDAM

BY DAVE WIELENGA

The timing of Michael Bauch’s documentary film, “Riding Bikes With The Dutch,” couldn’t have been better—unless you count the fact that tonight’s 7 o’clock encore screening at the Art Theatre coincides with Game 4 of NBA finals between the Lakers and Boston Celtics. I do.

But a promise is a promise, and I invited my parents to see the film—a surprisingly inspirational comparison between the cycle-centric culture of Amsterdam and the pedal-pushing movement in Long Beach—before I realized it would conflict with my Kobe-hating. Then again, they’re basketball fans, too, so maybe … naahhh—I’ve been wanting to see this flick since I missed the premiere in May.

Besides, I promised Bauch, too, and he went through all the trouble of taking his wife and infant son to live in The Netherlands—they temporarily swapped their Long Beach home for one in Amsterdam—and inventing a camera-holding device on his bike so he could take 67 hours of footage of people on theirs, then editing the whole thing down to 40 minutes and setting it to cool music.

Not that he makes it sound like much of a hassle.

“I really got into exploring Amsterdam’s walking-biking lifestyle—just the way the city is designed and how that affects the way the people do things,” says Bauch, 37, who got his first taste of culture shock in 1998 when he came to live in Long Beach … from Covina. “When it came time to return home, I was a little depressed, a little pessimistic, because of how car-centered we are in Southern California.”

But coming back to Long Beach brought another shock, this one rather pleasant.

“All these great things were starting to happen—the expanse of bike lanes, the sharrows in Belmont Shore, the reorientation to a bike-friendly city,” says Bauch. “The timing was perfect—it was like all these things we had loved about Amsterdam were following us home. I realized this would have to be a part of my film, too. It was nice to be able to give it a happy ending.”

And speaking of that, the screening should be over in time to catch the fourth quarter.

 RIDING BIKES WITH THE DUTCH • THE ART THEATRE  • 2025 E. 4th STREET  90814 • TONIGH 7PM • $5 • WWW.ARTTHEATRELONGBEACH.COM/• (562) 438-5435

BY ALLISON JEAN EATON / COMPTON BULLETIN

Aftershocks continue to ripple through Compton’s 10.5 square miles following the city council’s 3-2 vote last week to re-establish a local police department a plan that no longer has the backing of the consultant on whose study the plan is based.

A majority of the community appears staunchly opposed to reviving the department—shut down a decade ago because of rampant corruption—and several of the city’s most vociferous activists are currently rallying their fellow constituents to get active in a movement to stop the return of the Compton Police Department. They are calling for a boycott of the city’s Juneteenth celebration. There has even been mention of possibly filing an injunction preventing the city from moving forward with the plan. READ MORE