The Jacksonville Opera Theatre of Jacksonville State University presents 'Mikado' June 7-9 at Gadsden State Community College. Submitted photo
“The Mikado” is largely fictional — set in Japan, the story reflects Japanese culture, style and government in a picturesque setting. The JOT production claims a large cast and lots of humor. The Emperor of Japan, or “The Mikado,” is portrayed by Jarrod Lee, guest artist and JSU alumnus from Washington, D.C.
One of the beauties of a college production of Gilbert and Sullivan is the opportunity to update the libretto’s lyrics with contemporary references and topical humor. “The Mikado” pokes fun at JSU and at society, in general, said Teresa Stricklin, assistant director of JOT.
“Yes, we’ve been known for our departures from the lines,” says Wight. With that in mind, he adds, don’t be surprised when Ko-Ko, the Lord High Executioner of the town of Titipu, begins to sing that the person “showing mental deficiency from the university’s music department and the adviser to President Meehan” are on his list of future executions.
The revamped lyrics in this production don’t stop there. Viewers are treated to a chorus of car companies — Suzuki, Mitsubishi, Toyota, Honda and the like — and mentions of Snooki, texting, piercings and even the Tea Party.
Stricklin invites audiences to “come join us for an evening of side-splitting humor with a Japanese flair!”
Tickets are $12 for students and $20 for adults. Purchase tickets online at www.jacksonvilleopera.org or call for tickets at Wallace Hall Ticket Center, 256-543-ARTS.
Auditions for CAST’s next season
To be a part of the merriment and mystery at CAST Theatre next season, come to tryouts Saturday, June 8, at 3 p.m. and Monday, June 10, at 7 p.m. in the Fellowship Hall of First Presbyterian Church in Anniston.
Two musicals and two plays, all light fare, are on the 2013-14 ticket, and all ages and levels of acting, dancing and singing experience are welcome.
The scheduled performance are:
• “Guys and Dolls” — a Broadway musical that premiered in 1950, Sept. 12 -22.
• “A Christmas Story” — Ralphie must convince his parents, teachers and Santa that a Red Ryder BB gun is the perfect Christmas gift, Dec. 5 -15.
• “The 39 Steps” — Alfred Hitchcock’s thriller with a comic touch, Feb. 6-16, 2014.
• “9 to 5: The Musical” — It is based on the 1980 film with music and lyrics by Dolly Parton, April 24-May 4, 2014.
Season tickets are $50 for adults and $25 for students. If you purchase your season ticket by May 31, you’ll be entered in a drawing to receive reserved seating for next year. For more information, CAST’s website is www.castalabama.com or contact the CAST office at 256-820-CAST.
New photo exhibit at library
A new photo display by the Friends of the Library depicts life in the Model City in the 1920s and 1930s. The six photos, displayed in ornate frames that fit the fashion of the times, can be seen near the entrance of the Alabama Room.
The exhibit is in honor of the group’s past president, Virginia Emerson Hopkins.
It’s interesting to see The Ritz Theatre, in the 1300 block of Noble Street, back then. Also pictured are the first location of Sears Roebuck & Company, also on Noble Street; Buck’s Place, where tires were sold on West 10th Street; the Dixie Stage Lines at 1207 Noble; the old Coca-Cola Bottling Plant at 400 Noble; and Noble Theatre, which was first used as the Opera House.
As the self-anointed Wizard of Words, the Master of Metaphor, the Ruler of Wrote and the Lyrical Alchemist (I don’t even know what that last one means, but I was on a roll) I have a responsibility to — as every contestant on every MTV reality-dating show would say — keep it “real.”
Which is another way of saying this is my column and I’ll write what I want to, write what I want to.
So, there’s going to be a change. See, much like Adam in my own personal Garden of Eden, I’m responsible for the naming of things ... specifically, the nicknaming of things. But one familiar character to this space is simply not living up to the billing.
Don’t worry, The Diva’s still … well … diva-fied, and My Lovely Wife earns her keep in ways far greater than her beauty. But as they say in the soap operas, “the role of Jellybean is now being played by Pokey.”
That’s right folks, Jellybean is no more. Truth be told, she never really was. For those of you new to this space, Jellybean was given her nickname because that’s what she kinda looked like in her sonogram (actually, it was more like a Jolly Rancher, but I didn’t wanna have to type that a million times), but it’s a nickname that has existed in print only.
Jellybean doesn’t know who Jellybean is.
But her personal anonymity is about to be a thing of the past, because, as Forrest Gump might say, “Pokey is as Pokey does.” The child is slower than Aquaman on dry land. I know that she can’t tell time, but I can actually feel my life passing me by in the time it takes for her to make if from the backseat to the front … never mind the fact that I now punch a clock and time, literally, is money.
Pokey don’t play that. She’s gonna take her sweet time, mainly because she gets a kick at Daddy’s Frustrated Face. But it’s like I’ve said before, it’s hard to get mad at something so freakin’ cute … OK, so it’s not that hard, but still.
What’s particularly frustrating is that she appears utterly oblivious to the fact that it takes her 20 minutes to get from the couch to the front door even though I’m pleading for her to speed it up.
“Oh wait …” she says. “Just a second,” she says. “I’m coming,” she says. “Huh?” she says.
Whether it’s walking the dog, eating Pop-Tarts, coming in from the rain, getting out of the bathtub, putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket, choosing a movie or simply getting in the bed, one thing’s for certain — civilizations will rise and fall, galaxies will have been swallowed into black holes and the Oakland Raiders will have a winning season before Pokey gets it done.
At the heart of the matter is Pokey’s entourage. Charlie Sheen has less baggage and his, at least, is of the emotional kind. Whereas Pokey carries around armfuls of actual stuff — fluffy, cumbersome, oddly named animals and dolls that are as attached to her hip as a Siamese twin.
There’s Boo, Marlana, Barney Bear, Giant Baby, LaLa Loopsie, Alpha, Tiny Bunny and Carly — along with her giant fairy book, a bookbag filled with no less than three defunct cell phones, and some random trinket ... either a quarter, a rock, a shell, a rubber band, a colored pencil, lip gloss or sunglasses.
And that’s just for the nine-minute ride to school.
‘Course, she comes by it honestly. Pokey’s what my dad used to call me … come to think of it, he still does.
Contact Brett Buckner at 
On this subject and others, Gates offers what he calls a “realist’s view.”
“I had quite a reputation as a pessimist when I was in the intelligence business,” Gates said in a 2007 speech at the World Forum on the Future of Democracy in Williamsburg, Va. “A journalist once described me as the Eeyore of national security — able to find the darkest cloud in any silver lining.”
The United States has put such skepticism to good use during its history. The job of leader of the free world can rapidly age a U.S. chief executive. The world is watching you stand atop the global stage where each misstep is magnified. Your foreign enemies are well-versed at subterfuge designed to put egg on your face. Your domestic foes are hoping you’ll trip and fall. Your fellow party members are easily frightened and prone to self-destructive finger-pointing.
In a lengthy Vanity Fair profile last year, the author Michael Lewis neatly summed up the White House pressure cooker. “Putting it the way George W. Bush did sounded silly but he was right: the president is a decider,” Lewis wrote. “Many if not most of his decisions are thrust upon the president, out of the blue, by events beyond his control: oil spills, financial panics, pandemics, earthquakes, fires, coups, invasions, underwear bombers, movie-theater shooters, and on and on and on. They don’t order themselves neatly for his consideration but come in waves, jumbled on top of each other.”
Amid the chaos, a president needs solid counsel from an experienced hand who’s not going to panic, overreach or make the situation worse. During the Cold War, presidents relied on a set of informal advisers known as “wise men,” Washington insiders, diplomats and/or defense experts who could be trusted to deliver clear advice even in the middle of a crisis.
In The Wise Men: Six Friends and the World They Made, writers Walter Isaacson and Evan Thomas describe them: “They shared a vision of public service as a lofty calling and an aversion to the pressures of partisan politics. They had a pragmatic and businesslike preference for realpolitik over ideology.”
Gates would be on a short-list of candidates for modern-day wise men. In the mid-1990s, Gates wrote From the Shadows: The Ultimate Insider’s Story of Five Presidents and How they Won the Cold War. As Micah Zenko noted on the Council on Foreign Relations blog last week, Gates wrote, “It was my experience over the years that one of the biggest misimpressions held by the public has been that our military is always straining at the leash, wanting to use force in any situation. The reality is just the opposite. In more than twenty years attending meetings in the Situation Room, my experience was that the biggest doves in Washington wear uniforms. Our military leaders have seen too many half-baked ideas for the use of military force advanced in the Situation Room by hairy-chested civilians who have never seen combat or fired a gun in anger.”
This explains why in discussing Benghazi on CBS last week, Gates told Bob Schiefer that some in Washington have “a cartoonish impression of military capabilities and military forces.”
So, what might Gates say to a chief executive caught up in a spiral of controversies? What is the greatest threat facing the nation and its president? Why, Gates says, it’s “the inability of our political leaders to come together on bipartisan solutions, long-term solutions to the very real problems we have. … And unless we can come together on policies to deal with these problems that can survive one Congress and one presidency, then I think we’re in real trouble.”
Bob Davis is associate publisher/editor of The Anniston Star. Contact him at 256-235-3540 or 
Do you ever wonder how the instructors and trainers at your gym make fitness look so easy? Not only are they in great shape, they somehow keep a tight work-out schedule without wandering too far off the fitness path. How do they stay inspired and not lose interest or motivation?
Well, having been an instructor for 30 years and a trainer for 10, I’ll tell you, it can be hard. When you work up a good sweat, you feel so much better mentally and physically. It’s a cleansing feeling that keeps me motivated.
The key is to remember that feeling.
I took a poll of a few trainers and instructors from the YMCA. Since they live this lifestyle daily, their advice is important.
Two instructors had the same advice: Abs are not made in the gym, they’re made in the kitchen. In other words, if you give it your all in the gym then go home and fill up on unhealthy, empty calories, all your hard work is in vain. The two work hand in hand. Put as much willpower into your diet as you do in the gym and you will succeed in all your health and fitness goals.
That is great advice. You might have very strong abs, but they’ll be covered up by layers of fat if your diet is not clean.
A number of trainers advised eating every two hours, even if it’s just a piece of fruit. This helps keep metabolism up as well as your energy, and should keep you from overeating when it’s time to sit down to a meal.
Another tip to curb overeating is to drink 16 ounces of water before every meal, which also serves to keep you hydrated. Sometimes we mistake hunger for thirst.
In regard to fitness routine, one instructor advised mixing up your workout. Don’t do the same workout every day — change it up. If you do the same thing over and over and expect different results you will be disappointed. Try new exercises, add speed or incline to your treadmill workout. Set new goals every month and don’t be afraid to try new things.
And use your time wisely. Remember that exercise is cumulative. Try doing a minute-long plank when you have some down time. It will lead not only to a stronger core, but also get you in the habit of squeezing in a little fitness when you can.
Another trainer said it’s important to just to be consistent in your effort because there are no quick fixes in fitness. Lean toward exercises that are challenging but manageable. You need to make your weaknesses your strengths. By doing this you will eventually see the results you desire.
Try a few of these tips from the frontlines of fitness, and see if any of them work for you. But above all, be consistent and keep fighting the fight. It will pay off in quality of life and a feeling of accomplishment.
Ann Angell is the program manager for the Oxford YMCA.
