1

THE MESH

The Venice Marina Rotary Club (PO Box 871, Venice, CA 90294,

Thursday at 12:15PM, at Shanghai Red’s Restaurant, Marina del Rey, CA, except in

the case of special meetings. If there are any questions or comments, call 310 995

1228. Rotarians are asked to send changes, modifications and additions in their

addresses, telephone numbers and email information to 310 745 3502.

1.Is it the TRUTH?

2. Is it FAIR to all concerned?

3.Will it build GOODWILL & Better FRIENDSHIPS?

4.Will it be BENEFICIAL TO ALL CONCERNED?

Bill O’Hara has just returned to his home. He expects to be back to the meetings in

the next 2-3 months. I’m sure he’d like visitors and phone calls. His computer has

not yet been reinstalled at his house..2

Winnie Northrup is still in pain at home. Her doctor has changed her medication.

She would love to receive phone calls.

Adiba Shaby is still in intensive care at Brotman Hospital. She has had a trach and

is now breathing on her own. Her recovery will be long. She has to go home for

rest and recovery after she is released form intensive care and the hospital. Then she

goes to UCLA Hospital for one more surgical procedure. Her situation is still very

delicate. She is a fighter. Send her cards.

The meeting was opened by an invocation from Duncan Elkinson, the pledge was

led by Jan Davis and Joey Baker led us in a song. Emmanuel brought the raffle

prizes and he sold our raffle tickets. Guests included Franz Schilt, Grenchen,

Switzerland; Kelly Reynolds, Boys and Girls Club and guest of JR Dzubak; and

Alex rosales and Wessly Merchant, special guest of Jeffrey Solomon. Specila Guest

David Escobar also attended the meeting.

It was a special meeting because Joey (47 years perfect attendance) Baker was

joined by his longtime friend, Frank Blenkhorn, Santa Monica Club, who has 58

years of perfect attendance. Now these Rotarians surely established the way for the

rest of us-a total of 105 years of attendance.

The president welcomed everyone and then fined himself $10 for his comments.

That will teach him! Thanks to all who attended. The no fine badge brought $45.

Jeffrey Solomon bragged $25 for his new business "TRY MARKETING". Good

luck, Jeffrey. And Alex Gorby bragged $100 about his three daughters who are now

attending first rate colleges and universities. Keep working, Alex!

A board meeting was to be held (and was) after the regular meeting.

Our speaker was Dr. James Blumenthal, sponsored by Tony Medley and introduced

by David Maxwell. Dr. Jim is a doctor of chiropractic, diplomate of the American

Clinical Board of Nutrition, and board eligible neurologist who practices in Santa.3

Monica, CA. He talked about Interactive Metronome (IM) Training. Performing

Better and Healing Your Life with Timing-Based Brain Training was a most

informative presentation. This is a new timing-based tool for retraining the brain to

improve each person’s potential for increasing focus and attention, timing, mental

processing speed, impulse land motor control and coordination. Areas of the brain

where others have showed improvement include mental process speed, focus and

concentration, timing math fluency and reading influence. It’s potential for our

youth could be eye opening, especially for some of those children who now are

being treated with drugs for their behavior and attention deficiencies.

We thank Dr. Blumenthal for his power point presentation.

After his speech, Rotarian Kaz Smith drew for money from the cards and became

the first winner of this year. Way to go Kaz!!

The meeting was then adjourned.

Mark your calendar for our house building trip to Mexico October 24, 25 and 26.

Please let David Voss or David Maxwell know about your going.

Welcome to David Escobar, our Club’s newest member.

PDG Carol Wylie is our speaker. She will be talking about membership in Rotary.

She has agreed to help install Peter, Emanuel and David, our newest Rotarian

members. See you Thursday.

Past Club President David Voss will chair this meeting. We will have an author

talking about WWII in Europe. Jim Bovee will also be available to talk about his

experiences as an infantryman in Europe. Come see David Voss as he leads our

meeting this day..

The Charter School at the Venice Boy’s and Girls Club will be the subject of this

week’s program.

________________________________________________________

Letters to the Editor

At last week’s board meeting I was appointed to head a committee to come up with a

membership policy for our Club. Rotary International has more or less left it up to

the

individual Clubs to come up with there own requirements for membership. You

know, things like attendance requirements, how to handle our past due accounts,

member classifications, Club involvement and participation. That kind of stuff. I

am to have a recommendation to present at our Club Assembly in December. I

would love to have imput from as many of you as possible so, please e-mail me your

thoughts and suggestions and I will keep you abreast as things start to develop and

we begin to formulate a policy. This needs to be something that we all can agree on

so please spend a little time and thought on this and then share your ideas. Thanks

for your help.

Tom

Movie review

Dickie Roberts, Former Child Star (1)

Copyright © 2003 by Tony Medley.5

The pitch for this probably sounded good. Take a former child star from a TV

sitcom, Dickie Roberts (David Spade), and give him a selfish, Hollywood

mom, Peggy (Doris Roberts), who then abandons him. When his series is

cancelled, he’s a complete mess and can’t become an adult, never having been

a child. By the time we meet him, at age 35, he’s a loser. Then he hears about

a role in a new Rob Reiner film and gets an interview. Reiner rejects him on

the basis that he has to have been a child to act this part. So Dickie hires a

family, headed by Grace Finney (Mary McCormack, the best thing in the

movie), to allow him to join them to treat him as their child. The idea must

have been that we’ll watch them affect one another.

Unfortunately, what sounded good in a pitch has been translated by people

who don’t speak the language. Take the writers, for instance. Scriptwriters

Fred Wolf and Spade don’t have a clue about how children talk and act.

Nothing ever occurs that shows why Dickie should have a positive effect on

the family or why the family should have a positive effect on Dickie. Just

about everything Dickie suggests they do is dishonest or profane, and it turns

out OK, not the morality I want to see in a movie, even if it is supposed to be

a comedy. Using vulgar language is shown as being how to act like an adult.

One of the climactic moments in the film is when 35-year-old Dickie takes on

three 12-year-old bullies who are tormenting Sam and vanquishes them. Yeah,

that’s a great victory! The relationship between Grace and her husband is

never developed, other than showing him to be an insensitive clod while Grace

is perfection personified. Jon Lovitz plays Dickie’s agent, Sidney Wernick.

I’ve never seen Jon Lovitz before where he wasn’t funny. Wolf and Spade’s

script conquered that barrier. This could be the worst script of the century.

Or, take the casting. The two children, Sam (Scott Terra) and Sally (Jenna

Boyd) look like refugees from The Munsters. Sam’s hairdo looks like he must

have been electrocuted before each scene. If the idea was for Dickie to

become a child and try to live through a childhood by associating with

children, Sam and Sally aren’t the ones. They’re children who talk and act like

25 year-olds. Even more laughable (not funny laughable, pathetic laughable)

is the casting of the "bullies" who torment Sam. They’re fat and ugly and, in

real life, they’d be the bully-ees, not the bully-ers.

The movie terminates with a predictable, silly Hollywood ending, and then the.6

closing credits have legions of real life former child stars singing a coarse

song that, I guess, is meant to be funny. Instead it’s just scurrilous. However,

this segment does seem to validate the premise of the movie, to wit, as a result

of their lack of development in their formative years, former child stars often

grow up to be losers.

September 5, 2003

The End

Read more reviews in The Larchmont Chronicle, The Tolucan Times, and at www.hanthonymedley.com.

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