Today we have a summer show. It’s an appreciation of pop music as created by my guest Bob Cowsill (on right in photo) and by his siblings—together, known as the Cowsills. They had top 10 songs in the 1960s, but there’s more to their story than their hits “Hair,” or “The Rain, The Park, and Other Things.” The Cowsills perform in Sacramento on July 11 at the Crest Theatre as part of the Happy Together tour, and they have a new record due out this fall.
And, dear listener, if the songs we talk about today aren’t ones you heard as a kid or young adult, well, then as you listen, I invite you to think about the songs that helped alert you to the fun and the feeling of music. Because that’s the larger story here: the power of music. And maybe the power of a family.
|
My first question for Amanda Portier (pictured), this year’s top graduating senior at UC Davis, was how she managed to achieve straight A’s in her classes while chairing Picnic Day for 2022 and doing everything else she did as a student here. As you might imagine, she’s been asked this question more than once the last few weeks. Insights she gained from synchronized swimming are part of the answer. On today’s Davisville we also talk about community and regional development (her degree), using statistics to influence people (she minored in statistics) in a culture that seems to pay more attention to individual expression and personal experience, and what she’ll take from Davis as she leaves.
|
Craig McNamara, 72, now grows walnuts near Winters, but he grew up in Washington, D.C., at the center of power. His father Robert McNamara was the U.S. defense secretary for presidents Kennedy and Johnson during the Vietnam War. In his new memoir Because Our Fathers Lied / a Memoir of Truth and Family, from Vietnam to Today, Craig writes about opposing the war, his love for his dad, loyalty to the Constitution instead of to a president, coexistence, and other aspects of his life shaped by this core conflict. We talk about his story today on Davisville.
|
So here we are in Davis, starting another summer during a drought while also adjusting to larger changes in the weather. Don Shor (pictured) sees the impact of these changes from several angles, as the owner of the Redwood Barn Nursery in Davis, and as a certified nursery professional, landscape contractor, and lifelong gardener on his land near Dixon.
Local gardeners get the benefit of his advice on the weekly Davis Garden Show, which he co-hosts with Lois Richter on KDRT, and in his garden column in the Davis Enterprise. Today we extend the conversation to talk about how plants mediate heat, changes in what people are buying in Davis, why Davis is a good city for his business, and smart ways to use less water to get trees and plants through this drought.
|
Have you heard about Monticello, the small town west of Winters? In the 1950s it was destroyed and flooded to make room for Lake Berryessa, the reservoir created by Monticello Dam. This vanished town is the subject of the current exhibit at the Winters Museum. Today’s guests talk about why Monticello existed and how it emptied, and share stories about people who lived there.
Our guests are Woody Fridae, president of the Historical Society of Winters and a former mayor of Winters, and Carol Fitzpatrick, whose family lived in Monticello. She tells an interesting story about meeting a man in his 80s who, decades earlier, had been visiting Monticello at what turned out to be a critically important moment for her family.
|
As the Covid pandemic dials down in Davis, people are finding different ways to reconnect. Today’s story presents a way that’s off the scale in charm and whimsy -- it involves tiny crocheted triceratops that students are making and hiding on the UC Davis campus, for other students to find. Just for the fun of doing it. A Discord server for the project has more than 3,400 members so far, and Berkeley might be next.
Today we hear from the founder and two co-leaders of the Davis Triceratops community: UC Davis undergraduates Jennine Eng, Ada Lei, and Sebastian Carpintero. This photo (from left) shows Ada, Jennine, and Sebastian with three of the hundreds of dinosaurs created so far.
|
Watching movies on the big screen was once a mainstream, shared cultural experience. Think of the crowds that turned out for the Harry Potter movies or Titanic. Those days are gone. So wrote New York Times columnist Ross Douthat last month, and today we ask longtime film reviewers Derrick Bang and Matias Bombal what they think about this idea. Is the change due only to competition from other media, or is something else at work? What does it matter, regardless? Derrick, an author and frequent guest on Davisville, writes for the Davis Enterprise and his blog, Derrick Bang on Film. Matias posts reviews at Matias Bombal’s Hollywood and on KAHI radio, and formerly managed the Crest Movie Theatre in downtown Sacramento.
|
Gov. Gavin Newsom has proposed “care courts” for every California county. They would “allow treatment for more homeless people with severe mental health and addiction disorders,” says the Associated Press, “but also compel some of them into care.”
That’s a change — compelling severely disturbed people to accept care, instead of just offering it to them. Bill Pride, executive director of Davis Community Meals and Housing and one of today’s guests on Davisville, estimates that half of people who are homeless have a severe mental health disorder. This change could make a major difference in their lives, and in the extent of homelessness. Pride cautions that achieving this change in care would require years of sustained efforts and expense. We also talk with Yolo Chief Deputy District Attorney Jonathan Raven about the county’s existing Mental Health Court, and how Newsom’s proposal might work alongside what Yolo already does. |
It'll take awhile to fully understand what the pandemic has changed at UC Davis, but we learn more about the impact today during a return visit with longtime instructor Andy Jones. Andy, who is also an educational technologist, last appeared on Davisville a year ago, when the pandemic was about a year old. At the time, he was teaching one of the first classes to meet in person since the pandemic shut down the campus in spring 2020. Conditions have improved this past year — UC Davis will mostly stop requiring masks indoors on March 19 — but “normal” no longer means what it did. We talk about what that means, plus opportunities that have emerged from the disruption.
|
Live music is music, obviously, but it’s also culture, a reason to get together with friends, part of the economy—and this spring, as in-person performances continue to resume in Davis, it’s another marker of how the Covid pandemic is easing. Knock on wood.
Today we talk with Danny Tomasello, who’s part of the Davis Music Fest, and musicians Sam Misner and Megan Smith about the hodgepodge return of local concerts, what might have changed for keeps during the pandemic, this June’s Fest, and the need for someone to write about local music the way that Wendy Weitzel writes about local businesses and restaurants.
(The photo shows Misner and Smith onstage at Berryessa Brewing in Winters in February 2020, right before the pandemic hit.)
|
