Dirty Jack's

In the summer of 1979, Dirty Jack’s Theater staged a revue; a composite of scenes from several shows. When the actors showed up in May of that year, the show was not yet completely written. That was one of many bad omen. Another was this actor who sticks in my memory but for the life of me I cannot remember his name. If any of you remember the cast in 1979, just one word will bring him to mind: Braces! This guy was mildly pudgy with a doughy face and unremarkable features, but when he smiled we all gasped. These were not the little wires that some adults wear on their teeth: these were big shiny railroad tracks. Metal mouth. Tin grin. We all were in horror of the thought of the follow spot hitting his teeth… It would be like a big cheesy disco mirror ball, spewing daggers of light back at the audience. From his mouth, no less. It was going to be an interesting season. Have you ever heard the expression, “chewing the scenery?” It describes an actor who overdoes it; hams it up, emotes an...

The TASCAM DP-01 is an inexpensive digital hard disk recorder; it was my first DAW. I used it to record dozens of songs, and the results I got were mostly excellent. I strongly recommend it to others as an entry-level multi-track recorder. If you’ve been wanting to get that demo recorded, this is just the ticket. It makes beautiful recordings, as long as you navigate around its low-budget challenges. The DP-01 comes in three flavors, 1) basic, 2) with FX, and 3) with a CD burner. The version I had was the basic no-frills unit, but it has everything you need to capture great recordings and none of the things you don’t need if you are handy with a computer. The TASCAM DP-01 is set up similar to a mixer, with a vertical column of knobs for each of the eight recording channels. The knobs control low and high EQ, effects send, and left-right pan. A big, smooth slider controls the levels for each channel, as well as the master output. The inputs are on the front of the unit, with two ¼ - in...

Dirty Jack’s for some of us, was a lot like joining the circus. The theater was the big top. Jon Stainbrook was the Ringmaster; Nancy was the attractive trapeze artist; Doc Holt was the primary barker; Rhonda Willford was the ticket mistress; and Uncle “Rondo” was the advance man. The three-ring included “Butch,” the performing mule. The audience was king. If Dirty Jack’s seemed like joining the circus to us, imagine how it might have felt to an eight year old--the son of the “Ringmaster.” “Jon Jon” Stainbrook was there that summer, wide-eyed (as we were) with the magic of it all. His experiences are reminiscent of the plot summary of a book (later a movie) called “Ten Weeks With A Circus:” “…[the child protagonist] decides to leave life on the farm and joins up with a traveling circus...befriending eccentric and colorful characters, he is given the chance to fulfill his dreams by performing a daring horseback trick in front of a packed crowd...when he learns that his relatives h...