I recently helped Friends of The Senator (FOTS) compile this YouTube video, documenting The Senator's appearance before and after Baltimore City forced a change in ownership and management:
The video is a companion to the FOTS petition, encouraging the new operators to maintain the theatre's exterior neon and incandescent lighting, the landscaping, and remove accumulated graffiti. The petition was started about a month ago and has garnered over 600 signatures, mostly from the Baltimore area, but also from across the nation and around the world. Hundreds of comments left by signers often go far beyond the petition's modest request for exterior maintenance.
Tonight is Karaoke night again at The Senator Theatre. Doors will open at 7:00 PM and the festivities start at 8:00 PM. The past two Karaoke nights have been loads of fun, so please join us! Admission is free. Bring your ID, because you will be carded if you look like you might be under 21 and try to buy a drink.
I've been truly impressed by the talent of the people who have been coming out for Karaoke. Each week a portion of the night is a Karaoke contest, leading up to the big costume Karaoke contest on October 30th. Last week, we had three contest winners, as follows:
Keith won for his rendition of Luther's "A House is Not A Home," but what I caught on video was his earlier appearance on stage, before the contest began, singing Steely Dan's "Deacon Blues."
Jenn won for her rendition of "Proud Mary," but again, I have a video of an earlier performance from before the contest began. (My camera hard disk got full toward the end.) Here's Jenn singing "Gloria."
Todd won for his rendition of "Love" by Musiq. Toward the end of this video, I ran out of hard disk, but you can see he's a really talented singer.
Last week we also had a visit from actor Johnny Alonso, who has appeared in "Dawson's Creek," "One Tree Hill," and "Buffy the Vampire Slayer." Johnny sang Frank Sinatra's "Luck Be A Lady."
Johnny Alonso also appears in two independent films that will be showing at The Senator. "Gospel Hill" makes its Baltimore premiere on Saturday at 8 P.M. Doors open at 7:15 PM. Also watch for "Safe House," coming soon.
On Sunday at 4 PM, D'Jembe Jazz Jams with Park Vibe continues as a free form jam session that is open to all. The acoustics of the outer lobby made it especially resonant last Sunday. This is a jam session, not a performance, so it gets rolling when people show up. If you show up early and it's not quite starting on time, please be patient.
On Sunday there will also be a screening of the Japanese monster movie RODAN, along with a TV taping of MONSTER MADHOUSE. The event starts at 1 PM.
Our Visit with David Arquette in a Plexiglas Box in NYC!
On Tuesday, Tom Kiefaber and Gayle Grove from The Senator took me with them up to New York City to visit their friend, actor David Arquette. David was sitting in a plexiglas box on top of the marquee of Madison Square Garden, to raise awareness about hunger for Feeding America, as part of the Snickers Bar Hunger campaign.
Tom and Gayle had known David for a while. He visited The Senator when he was promoting his film "The Tripper," and they've been in touch with him since then. When we found out he would be sitting in the box to raise awareness about hunger, we initially thought maybe he could bring the box on the road and sit on top of The Senator's marquee. We all liked his cause, because The Senator has collected tons of food over the years for a local food pantry.
I knew that Gayle had been in touch with David about this, so I was sitting in The Senator's lobby one day and I happened to be thinking about how cool it would be if we could go visit David Arquette in the box. In a weird kind of synchronicity, just as I was thinking that, Tom walked into the lobby and almost immediately got a call from David, who then invited us up to visit.
We took the MegaBus from White Marsh to NYC. A double-decker bus with wireless that costs less than $20 to take you into Manhattan! I'll be doing that again!
We took The Senator's mascot, Squid on the Go, with us. Squid was discovered by a volunteer, Colin Harris, who noticed that if you put your hand between the knobs on the popcorn bins just right, it looks like a squid with two eyes. Several of us had said that when The Senator is closed (as is likely after the auction), we'll miss squid. Another volunteer, Marty Kahl, invented Squid on the Go, so we'll always be able to take a piece of The Senator with us. Strange things happen at night when you're sitting behind the concession stand at a historic theatre. Anyway, David Arquette met Squid and became the first Celebrity Squid!
It was a bit noisy in the box, so much of the video I recorded was not very audible. I did manage to get a few of the fun clips into the video above, though.
David asked us about the upcoming auction of The Senator, and later spoke on the phone to Laura Vozzella at the Sun, to whom he noted "Just the fact that it's going to auction is really sad, that they weren't allowed to turn it into a nonprofit."
Later, I asked David about his work with Feeding America, which he's been supporting for a few years now. He said 36 million people in this country are considered "food insecure." They don't know where their next meal is coming from.
Last weekend, while "Under Our Skin," the award winning documentary on Lyme disease, was playing at The Senator, activists who had helped to bring the film to The Senator held a Lyme disease awareness rally outside the theatre. Please watch these informative videos of the rally and hear the agonizing stories told by Lyme disease patients and their loved ones.
The following is my video documentary of The Senator's recent sidewalk block painting party. It includes interviews with Senator owner Tom Kiefaber and long time key staff member Gayle Grove, as well as many volunteers.
This is not the interview with Tom that was mentioned on the Anthony McCarthy Show, and which should be ready for publication soon. That one will be much longer and transcribed into written form.
This is a conversation between two of our patrons at The Senator, which they asked me to record. In it, they discuss a movie that played last weekend, "The Spook Who Sat By The Door," military service in Vietnam, and an upcoming biography by Carroll A. Durham, Jr., about his experience serving in Vietnam.
I got to try out my new editing software on this. Check out the groovy titles and transitions!
Just one more example of the fascinating array of events and conversations happening at The Senator!
My title is a bit tongue-in-cheek, but last week's community meeting at The Senator Theatre and subsequent Baltimore Sun articles have revealed Kim Clark of the BDC to be an interesting, complex public figure with nuanced opinions and a flexible, changeable mind. If one were being unkind, one might say flip-flopper.
Now that I and others have videos and audio of the highlights of the meeting put together, let's examine the many conflicting opinions of that multi-faceted personality known as Kim Clark.
First of all, if you only have time to watch one video of the meeting, let it be this one from Arlette Productions. This highlights the discussion about the city's CHAP designation, which Kim Clark called "ill-timed" and "unnecessary," saying she had "in other people's face discussions" about it. I would have thought you only have "in other people's face discussions" if something is really wrong with what's happening.
Wednesday, both Clarke and state Sen. Joan Carter Conway, who called the meeting, questioned the timing and wisdom of the commission's action. But Friday, Clarke sounded less concerned: "I don't think it's as much of a roadblock as some people portray it to be."
Clark has changed her position about the likelihood of the theatre being sold at auction, too. In the meeting, she said she thought it unlikely that anyone would bid a million dollars for the theatre at auction, something she was strongly questioned on, given the extraordinary value and unique nature of The Senator.
After the meeting, she said that at least two parties with the necessary resources are interested.
Clark said she has heard from at least two prospective bidders -- one from Maryland, one from outside the state -- with the financial wherewithal to pay at least the minimum price for the theater. Plus, she said: "I'm hearing from other parties that they have been contacted. There seems to be definite interest out there."
OK, now to be fair, it may be there has been sudden interest since word of the auction got out that is surprising to Kim Clark, though not at all surprising to those of us who know and love The Senator Theatre.
But still, given that she does seem to change her mind a lot, can we really take her seriously when, confronted with the fact that her comments in a Daily Record article a couple of months ago made it seem that someone in city hall may have a personal grudge against Senator owner Tom Kiefaber, she claimed to have been misquoted? Her comments in the Daily Record set off a negative slew of nasty defamation of Tom Kiefaber that derailed the focus on The Senator from finding an appropriate solution to its future, by the way. Here you can (barely) hear her denying that she ever made those comments (she was off-mic for the denial). The comment she responds to with her denial can be found starting at about 4 minutes into this video:
What a fascinating character she is. Complex is the word, I believe.
Unnecessary and Ill-Timed: Baltimore City's CHAP action on The Senator Theatre
See why Baltimore City's CHAP action on The Senator Theatre is costing the taxpayers almost a million dollars that could have come from private investors. Senator Theatre owner Tom Kiefaber, members of the public, State Senator Joan Carter Conway, and Baltimore Development Corporation (BDC) Executive Vice President Kim Clark all agree: CHAP's actions were unnecessary and ill-timed.
Here is the long-awaited sequel to Woman Snorts Natty Boh to Save Historic Theatre!
Real millionaires should know they can probably buy The Senator at auction in late May or early June for about $1.1 million - and if there wasn't a lot of value there, Baltimore City wouldn't be trying so hard to take it over.
Wow. I had a little too much fun at the Senator this weekend, which is maybe why I couldn’t get a blog post together yesterday. I want to thank Tom Kiefaber, Sean Brescia of Clearpath Management, Gayle and the rest of the staff at the Senator, and of course all the wonderful musicians and local businesses who volunteered their talents and services to make the Senator Sessions a great success! Thank you for a wonderful, exciting weekend. Best time I’ve had since I moved to Baltimore, and I am thrilled to know such talent is in the area!
The emerging shared vision of the Senator as a premiere multi-use arts and entertainment facility has now been successfully demonstrated as an evolving reality. This weekend was the icing on a cake that was baked over the past few weeks during other events like the inauguration, the Super Bowl, the Mind Field premiere, as well as showings of some of the finest current Hollywood movies.
The question remains whether, without community input, the city’s steering committee is sharing this vision, or even has a plan at all.
I want to echo David Arquette’s warning in his recent blog post about the Senator: there is indeed a danger of this cherished local resource falling into the wrong hands. This is not necessarily because anything malicious is happening. It’s just that the city does not have a good track record for planning of community spaces, as I think many of my neighbors who remember all the struggles over the Belvedere Square redevelopment project can attest.
Right now, it’s unclear whether the city has a plan for the Senator, and I understand from a conversation with a steering committee member that nobody on the steering committee has any experience in running a theater. My guess is that the city stepped in to try to help in what everyone agrees is an emergency situation, but they’re unprepared to help.
Unfortunately, they so far have not heeded what was the real request that came out of the emergency town hall at the Senator in January --- we asked them to come to the table with local community and business association leaders, community members, and Tom Kiefaber to discuss openly what can be done to put the Senator into the hands of a community-owned non-profit and transition it in a seamless way that will keep the doors open. So far, the city is having their own little private meetings and has not come to the table with all of us.
As for Tom Kiefaber, he knows just as well as Dan Rodricks at the Sun does that this is not about him. The Senator is bigger and more important than one man, and everyone knows that. I think Tom knows he has to give it up and let other people run the place, but let’s face it --- so far this is his life’s work. He’s been saving the Senator for over 20 years. Of course he doesn’t want to just let it go unless there’s a plan in place for it to be going in the right direction and safely in the hands of the community that loves it. Anyone who has done work they cared about deeply must understand that. It’s only natural.
The public also may not understand that the city really isn’t offering anything directly to Tom Kiefaber in their bid to acquire the Senator. The $320K figure they’ve floated would only pay off a small, currently unsecured portion of a much larger debt of more than $900K. It would be going straight to the bank, none of it into Tom’s pocket. He and his family are going to be in dire financial straits even if they take this deal. This is what I’m able to glean from the public record. Since the loan is secured by their home as collateral, it may in fact be a matter of taking the deal or losing their home (the fact that their home is currently collateral was reported in the Sun). More public money seems unlikely to be the solution, but from a standpoint of human compassion, I really have to say I hate to think that the family that made such huge personal sacrifices to keep the Senator open for the past 20 years is going to continue to suffer as a consequence. That part of this really breaks my heart.
I also want to just express a plea for not only keeping the doors open, but also keeping the staff of the Senator employed. There are a lot of good people there who stand to lose their jobs in this horrendous economy.
So, there’s a lot of positive stuff that can come out of this, as the wonderful weekend of fun just demonstrated. There’s also some bad consequences that could happen if we’re not careful. I want to see a solution that serves the highest good for the entire community, and keeps the Senator open as the multi-purpose arts and entertainment venue it needs to be.
I've just published a list of my top ten favorite video blogs on Associated Content. I submitted this in response to one of their Calls for Content, which means I had a contract with them to write it as an exclusive, so it won't be posted here or on any other blogs. Click the link to take a look.
I was thinking about Hillary Clinton and the politics of parsing today, and an old song just popped into my head. The song is called "Undecided." I suggested this song to a few Edwards supporters as a good song to describe Hillary. Yesterday, I had written a diary about Hillary's many positions on Iraq and Iran, so I decided to make this video.
Meanwhile, NCDem heard the song and made a video on Hillary's many positions on driver's licenses for illegal immigrants.
