Fellow Travelers ...

i on San Diego

ROAD TRIP: Attorney Dave Stutz and his wife, Abbe Wolfsheimer, the former San Diego councilwoman, are back from a four-week summer cruise from Dubai to Rome. They sailed the waters of Somalian pirates and, says Stutz, “I smuggled my Jewish wife into Saudi Arabia — under a full burka, 10 miles from Mecca — and out again, alive.” Meanwhile, he says, “While in the belly of the beast, I kept track of news back home by watching CNN, with its reports of San Diego forest fires; a Tijuana gun battle in broad daylight that left 13 dead; a great white shark attack on a North County surfer; a bomb at San Diego’s Federal Courthouse; and a massive drug bust at San Diego State University.” All of which, Stutz says, led an Australian fellow traveler to offer a suggestion: “You might want to consider staying on here in the Middle East; seems safer than home for you.”

SAN DIEGO SEEN: San Diego overseas: The BBC is shooting a reality show here this summer called Ocean’s 10 — about six British kids experiencing our Junior Lifeguard program. Not exactly American Gladiator, but then it is British TV ... Meanwhile: ABC is scouting San Diego for a second season of the Here Come the Newlyweds unreality show, and a new game show called Trivial Pursuit is already filming on location here. (Which calls to mind Doug Ferrari’s fine line from yesteryear, when the board game was all the rage: “Trivial Pursuit is the cocaine of the ’80s. You stay up all night with people you don’t like, talking about things you don’t care about.” ... The sanctioning of gay marriage by the California Supreme Court has the local hospitality industry salivating. The UCLA School of Law estimates gay marriage could bring the state $684 million in direct spending over the next three years. According to Community Marketing Inc., a firm that tracks gay and lesbian demographics, San Diego is among the nation’s 10 most-popular vacation destinations for gays. And it’s expected to be one of the top three destinations in California for gay honeymooners. Our ConVis Bureau is all over it.

IT’S TRUE, the rich do get richer. The World Wealth Report says the number of millionaire households in San Diego is up more than 13 percent since 2006 (and that’s with housing values dropping). Furthermore, while the number of San Diego households is expected to increase by about 7 percent in the next five years, the number of millionaire households will increase by nearly 35 percent.

THE WANDERING I: Plaintive painting on a construction fence at Fort Stockton Drive and Falcon Street: “What if the Hokey Pokey really is what it’s all about?” ... Sweeping for bioterrorists? In advance of the big BioTech convention block party in the Gaslamp Quarter, private police were out in force with bomb-sniffing dogs tosecure the perimeter of the venue ... According to The New York Times, the Homeland Security Department is alarmed over a growing pattern of illegal-alien smuggling by the very people charged with protecting our border with Mexico. Currently, there are about 200 cases pending against law-enforcement employees who work the border, the Times says. The problem has become so serious, job applicants will soon be given lie detector tests to ensure they’re not already working for smuggling rings.

TRY, TRY AGAIN: The Old Globe Theatre’s announcement of the musical Working as the final production of its 2008-09 season may have surprised some theater mavens with long memories. The musical, based on a 35-year-old sociological tome by author Studs Turkel, has not exactly been boffo on the boards. When the original 1977 Broadway version bombed after just 25 performances, conventional wisdom said it failed because it was “overproduced.” Not so, said The New York Times’ Alvin Klein. “Working failed because it was tedious, shapeless and lacking in momentum and the visceral drive that defines musical theater,” he wrote. After a “revisal” was staged in New Haven in 1999, Klein wrote: “Working comes off all the worse ... If the show succeeds in community centers or school auditoriums, where the message is more important than the medium, that may be where it belongs.” Undeterred, the Globe team, betting on new music from 2008 Tony winner Lin-Manuel Miranda (In the Heights), plans a March opening for the play here, with ambitious visions of returning it to Broadway.

GOOD SPORT: The Girl Scouts’ Urban Campout on September 14 aims to raise $400,000 for the Scouts, with the University of San Diego women’s basketball team and female NASCAR driver Erin Crocker lending support. Could the Sports Madness theme have something to do with Tony Napoli serving as first-ever male chair of the event? “Actually, I was holding out for a Disney princesses theme,” quips Napoli, “but I was overruled.”

LEGACY: The passing of comic philosopher George Carlin left us a storehouse of his accumulated wisdom. Among Pat Shea’s favorite Carlin parting shots: “There’s no such thing as flavored water. There’s a whole aisle of this crap at the supermarket — water, but without that watery taste. Sorry, but flavored water is called a soft drink. You want flavored water? Pour some scotch over ice and let it melt.”

Do you like what you read? Subscribe to San Diego Magazine »