Suspicious activity at camp, and funky jazz at the Brewery

by Karl Horeis

Sunday night, I was loading my groceries onto the back seat of Sheila Gardner's little silver Jetta. A friend and former co-worker, she's letting me use it while she and her daughter, Kate, are in China for two weeks.

When I approached a stop light on Saliman on my way home, I applied the brakes and heard a bag of groceries slide off the seat onto the floor. When I got home I was glad to find none of the eggs had broken. My luck with eggs was about to run out, however.

Monday night, I was camping near the "pyramid" on Pyramid Lake. Appeal night press foreman Cliff Rutherford was using the cooler as a chair. When we woke in the morning Tuesday, he said "I wish I had some cold juice."

I had some and offered it to him.

"It's in the cooler," I said, looking to where he had been sitting the night before. There was no cooler there -only a flat spot on the sand.

The thing had vanished. We asked all our camp neighbors, but it was gone. Along with it went the cold juice, a block of Tillamook sharp cheddar, a delicious elk salami from Carson City's Don Reasons and, of course, all the eggs. There was only one way to remedy that situation: a hand-made ravioli lunch at Bruno's in Gerlach.

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The Appeal has registered a co-ed softball team with the recreation department. We are called the Headliners and will wear white jerseys with blue sleeves and red lettering. On Friday, we practiced at Centennial Park. It was great fun to be out in the grass, throwing and catching. The lights came on at dusk, and we felt like professionals.

After most of us had left, the team sponsored by the Carson Station invited us to play a scrimmage game. Their leader, Snap, was very encouraging.

When you hit or caught a ball or ran the bases, he would say, "Didn't that feel good?"

During the game, his cousin got hit in the head with a ball thrown 50 yards. That didn't feel good, but he was all right.

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Now some entertainment items:

David John and the Comstock Cowboys will perform a benefit concert at the Carson Nugget at 8 p.m. Saturday. Tickets, which are $15 general and $10 for Prospector's Club members, will benefit the reconstruction of the Virginia & Truckee Railroad.

This is a 21-and-over-only show. Tickets are at the Prospector's Club booth from 8 a.m. until midnight.

Also performing at the Nugget will be Brian Lester's group Teaser from Tuesday through April 25. For more details, call the Nugget at 882-1626.

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Carson City is becoming a jazz hot spot. Saturday, I took in live jazz by the Millennium Bugs at the Greenhouse Garden Center. On Tuesday, the Mile High Jazz Band played jazz and swing to their growing crowd of followers at Comma Coffee.

The band will be at the Brewery Arts Center Performance Hall at 511 W. King Street at 7:30 p.m. Friday. The Brooklyn Sax Quartet will play music described as funky, raw, tough, smart and cross-cultural.

The group, which has played with Anthony Braxton and the Temptations, is releasing its second recording, including an original arrangement of Dizzy Gillespie's "A Night in Tunisia." Members David Bindman (tenor sax), Fred Ho (baritone), Sam Furnace (alto) and John O'Gallagher (soprano) perform as a group, break into pairs and perform solos.

Tickets are $15 general, $12 for BAC members and seniors, and $5 for students with school ID. Call 883-1976 for tickets and information.

Contact Karl Horeis at khoreis@nevadaappeal.com or 881-1219.