Contra Costa Times columnist and pop culture observer Tony Hicks wrote today about Billie Joe Armstrong, East Bay resident and leader of the band Green Day, and his outspoken remarks about South Korean pop star Psy.
Click the link above and you’ll also see a selection of photos over the years of Armstrong on stage, but we want to go back a bit more. Like Pinole Valley High School in 1989, when Billie Armstrong was in the PVHS yearbook.

And a yearbook shot of Armstrong flanked by Mike Pritchard and Sean Hughes “looking cool as always.”

“In the Cupboard,” a poem that Evie Groch of El Cerrito wrote and entered in the San Mateo County Fair poetry contest, swept its division, winning first place and best of show.

In the Cupboard

On the table among the New Gamboge,

and Jasper Green.

We paint with broad strokes

and detailed attention

the broccoli heads and tangelos

slinking across the models’ table.

We remember to color wash

and suffer no distractions

Until the teacher opens the cupboard

to reach the empty yogurt containers

and I espy a pair of red and white stilettos –

stilettos with 4-inch heels, which rest perpendicularly

on the shelf and whisper for someone to set them free,

take them out and dance hard.

I cannot shift my eyes.

tangelo can.

– Evie Groch

The Saturday kiddee matinee at the Cerrito Theatre on the weekend of March 18, 1938 had a full day’s entertainment for a dime.

The bill included “The Robin Hood of El Dorado,” a 1936 MGM feature about 19th century Mexican outlaw Joaquin Murietta. Local legend has it that Murietta once hid out from the pursuit of authorities in the area later known as El Cerrito.

Along with the main feature was a two-reeler with British child star Sybil Jason, a Three Stooges short and a Popeye cartoon, along with free beanies for the kids.

Quite a bargain even in the Great Depression — provided you could keep the children away from the snack counter.

Here’s the trailer for The Robin Hood of El Dorado

Robin-Hood-Of-El-Dorado-The-Original-Trailer-.html

Prolific East Bay playwright Kathryn McCarty is at it again with “(Not) A Christmas Carol,” a modern adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic, on stage at 8 p.m. Dec. 7 and 8 at the Knox Center for the Performing Arts at Contra Costa College in San Pablo.
Read about it in the official news release:

Ring in the Yuletide spirit with Contra Costa College Drama Department’s production of “(Not) A Christmas Carol,” a modern adaptation of the Charles Dickens classic. Written and directed by drama professor Kathryn G. McCarty. Running December 5-8 at CCC’s John and Jean Knox Performing Arts Center on the San Pablo campus.
McCarty, who has taught at the college for over a decade, is a prolific playwright. Her most recent noted works have included “RIVETS!,” which enjoyed several runs aboard the SS Red Oak Victory in the Rosie the Riveter National Park in Richmond, and “The Ladies Quintet,” which played in Chicago and Los Angeles theaters.
McCarty sees “(Not) A Christmas Carol” as unlike most other theatrical adaptations of the holiday favorite. “I’ve integrated a lot of comedy in modernizing the story,” she said. Adapting the classic was no easy task said McCarty, explaining that she wanted to create a comedy that was easily accessible to audiences, and that still held true to the story and meaning of what Dickens wrote.
“I kept wondering, how would Dickens incorporate world events if he were writing his story in 2012?”
According to McCarty, in 1843, the year Dickens penned the classic, many holiday traditions were established. “In that same year, the Christmas card was invented and England’s royals introduced the Christmas tree to holiday events,” she said.
The show’s main character, Ebeneezer Scrooge (played by Mark Hinds), is the leader of the world’s first “Oil and Bank Consortium.” Hinds is a guest artist at CCC, having recently graduated from UC Berkeley. McCarty pointed out that she has worked with Mark on several projects, and “so respects him for following his dream of earning his degree. After his five children graduated from college, he decided it was time to complete his education, which had been interrupted by the Vietnam War. I think he is an incredible role model for all college students.”
“No other author has more of an influence than Charles Dickens on how we celebrate Christmas,” said McCarty. “He used the holiday to examine society as a whole. The amazing thing is that we are still battling the issues of poverty and greed that Dickens wrote about nearly 200 years ago.”

Tickets at the door are $15 general, $10 students and seniors, free for children under 8.

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The Ivy Room in Albany, one of the town’s older bars that has been closed for some time, has reopened under new ownership and is holding a “Relaunch Party” starting at 8 p.m. Saturday.
The festivities will include retro swing music by the Frisky Frolics.

A 1930s view of the Julia Morgan-designed Berkeley City Club, then known as the Berkeley Women's City Club, "a monument to the city's womanhood."

A tour of homes and buildings designed by architect Julia Morgan will be hosted by the Berkeley Architectural Heritage Association from noon to 4 p.m. Nov, 18.

Sites on the tour, being held as part of the statewide Julia Morgan 2012 Festival, will include private residences and landmarks such as the Hearst Gymnasium (her collaboration with Bernard Maybeck) and Girton Hall on the UC Berkeley campus; the Berkeley City Club; and the Bancroft Hotel, designed by Morgan’s longtime associate Walter T. Steilberg.

A post-tour reception will be held at the association’s McCreary-Greer House at 2318 Durant Ave.

The tour cost is $25, or $20 for BAHA members. For details or reservations visit berkeleyheritage.com, send an email to baha@berkeleyheritage.com or call 510-841-2242.

A 1970s postcard shows the entrance to the Berkeley City Club on Durant.

The screen chemistry of Katharine Hepburn and Spencer Tracy are on full display in the 1949 film “Adam’s Rib,” directed by George Cukor.

The film will be presented on the big screen at 7 p.m. Nov. 8 at the Rialto Cinemas Cerrito, 10070 San Pablo Ave., as part of the Cerrito Classics series.

“To my mind, Tracy-Hepburn’s best, and an Oscar-winning screenplay by another couple, Ruth Gordon and Garson Kanin,” writes Linda Moss of Friends of the Cerrito Theater. “It’s all about the battle of the sexes, and in a very modern way.”

Judy Holliday plays the defendant in the comedy, which has the two headliners playing married attorneys who are handling opposite sides of the case.

Seats are $8 each available at the box office or online at rialto cinemas.com.

When San Francisco magazine ran a piece in its February 1965 issue assessing Bay Area radio stations it couldn’t foresee the changes that were on the horizon.
At the time, KEWB and KYA were the two Top 40 stations, while KFRC was still trying to compete with market leader KSFO for the adult audience and had yet to become the Top 40 powerhouse known as “The Big 610″ that would bring an end to KEWB.
KGO was experimenting with talk radio, but only for nine hours daily and not to good reviews, at least in the magazine piece.
KCBS, meanwhile, was still three years away from moving to an all-news format and KDIA was broadcasting from downtown Oakland.
And what about FM radio? Basically, nobody but audiophiles listened to it in 1965 and certainly nobody heard it on their AM-only car radios.

The Cerrito Classics series at Rialto Cinemas Cerrito was a hit in October with a sold-out pre-Halloween showing of the 1974 comedy “Young Frankenstein” that prompted a second night with two screenings of the Mel Brooks classic that again packed the house.
This month the series hosted by the Friends of the Cerrito Theater goes in a different direction at 7 p.m. Nov. 10 with the 1964 musical “My Fair Lady,” with Rex Harrison as Henry Higgins and Audrey Hepburn as Eliza Doolittle.
“The movie won eight Oscars and was nominated for four more,” writes Linda Moss of Friends of the Cerrito Theater. “To my mind, there just aren’t enough superlatives to describe it!”
Look for Barbara Pepper (Doris Ziffel on TV’s “Green Acres”) as Doolittle’s dance partner.
The screening will show the 1994 restored version of the 170-minute film — complete with the 10-minute intermission of the original presentation — and like all classics, it deserves to be seen on the big screen. The clips linked here should only whet your appetite.
Come for the Lerner and Loewe score of the adaption of George Bernard Shaw’s “Pygmalion” and gawk at the great costumes and sets in Technicolor in a comfy art deco local movie house.
All seats are $8 at the Cerrito, 10070 San Pablo Ave., and tickets (keep those sellouts in mind) and details are available in advance at www.rialtocinemas.com/cerrito/.

Bring the family out to enjoy good food (and some of the, uh, lovely summer weather we’ve been having) at the Picnic in the Point next week.

Funds raised at the event will benefit Washington Elementary School. The day will include food and drink courtesy of the Up & Under Pub and Grill, live music, carnival games, mini sport tournaments, crafts, old-fashioned foot races and various contests for kids and adults.

Advanced tickets are $20 (which gets you $30 worth of food, beverage or game tickets), and can be purchased at three locations:

• The Up & Under Pub and Grill, 2 West Richmond Ave. or 510-778-1313.
• Smith Office Solutions, 51 Washington Ave. or 510-231-4787.
• Point Richmond Art Collective, 121 Park Place or 510-778-1480.