By CHARLES ANDREWS
BUT FIRST! THIS IMPORTANT MESSAGE –
If you care about the arts. And free speech, free media, free libraries – then please participate in the next protest against the insane clown posse known as the Trump regime. The U.S. has not seen a nationwide general strike since 1886, when 300,000 workers walked off their jobs to fight for an 8-hour workday. Before that, it was 10-12 hours, six or seven days a week. That’s not living. But the Rockefellers, Astors, Vanderbilts, and other oligarchs of that time would not have changed anything unless forced by such an overwhelming demonstration by workers.
But a general strike is a common practice in other parts of the world, because it shows how many people are extremely dissatisfied, and what their collective economic power is. Autocrats and oligarchs understand getting hit in the wallet.
MAY 1 2026 – WORKERS OVER BILLIONAIRES
Skip work, skip school, skip buying ANYthing that day except at local “mom and pop” businesses. No Costcos, no Starbucks (Jerry Rubin), no DoorDash pizza. There are 350,000,000 of us, with human rights to food, shelter, clean air and water, health care, and education, and the oligarchs, orchestrated and enabled by Donald Trump, have eroded those human rights for their own profits, at the suffering expense of millions of Americans. Greedy people who have an obsession with piling up even more billions. How many islands, mansions, and spaceships do they need? The rest of us don’t have enough, because they can never get enough.
It doesn’t have to be this way, and now is a perfect time to change that. Numbers talk, and dollars talk.
Trump has loaded his cabinet with billionaires, and his administration with incompetents who he thinks look good on TV, and it is past time to say no, with our dollars and working bodies.
This is not ideology. This is humanity. Ask the Pope. Don’t dismiss these ideas, ripe for this time. If not now, when? You know I’m right.
But while making the wrongs right, we can also dance and sing! It’s almost summer! So much great music to revel in. A lot of it jazz.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED:
Tonight (Wed)! – GERALD CLAYTON TRIO – If you’ve read these columns over the past 15 years, you know there are two artists I recommend to anyone, no matter what kind of music you favor. If you’ve got ears, you will know, and you will smile. Master drummer Peter Erskine – an SM local for 40 years – is one, and pianist Gerald Clayton the other. Born in Utrecht, Netherlands, he swam over to SoCal at age one and grew up here. LA County HS for the Arts, USC’s Thornton School of Music. But he may as well be an alien or angel, the way gorgeous music of the spheres flows through his long fingers. He’s New York-based so you shouldn’t miss any opportunity to see him, and Sam First is a perfect, intimate venue, near LAX. He’ll be performing with his reunited trio, Joe Sanders (bass) and Justin Brown (drums). Wed 7:30, 9:30 p.m., Sam First, LAX, $45-50.
“BLUE KISS,” Ruskin Group Theatre – Playwright Stephen Fife has meticulously constructed a bizarre family odyssey that peels off layer by layer, with surprises and even shock. This one is not an easy ride for the audience, not many smiles, but well worth it. They’ve got another winner here, more proof of what an artistic gold mine lil ol’ Santa Monica is. Only an idiot wouldn’t want to preserve and nurture all this. It’s a perfect opportunity to experience the beautiful new Ruskin Group Arts Center, just a couple of buildings down from the old one. This play is in the smaller room, the 55-seat Audre Theatre. Their bar is now open at the Ruskin, so sit back and dig the ride. Fri, Sat 8 p.m., Sun 2 p.m., Ruskin Group Theatre, SM Airport, $30-35.
VERDI “FALSTAFF,” L.A. OPERA – Drink it in, the incomparable Romantic Italian opera composer Giuseppe Verdi, with a really good librettist, the British Bard. Expect comic mayhem, disguises and mistaken identities, merry wives and a knight not quite up to it all. Verdi doing Shakerspreare, an all-star jam! I hope to see it this weekend and give an in-person report. Only one performance this week, then several more through May. But don’t wait to get tickets, or you may be drinking alone. Sun 2 p.m., Dorothy Chandler Pavilion, LA, $44-400.
HOT CLUB OF LOS ANGELES – This rockin’ quintet, known for Django Reinhardt-style ‘30s-’40s jazz (for starters, but they go way beyond), whose across-the-board virtuosity never fails to bring a smile. I have never heard anyone walk away from one of the HCOLA shows and say, “They’re pretty good!” Usually, it’s hard to say anything when your jaw is on the floor. Still at their years-long residency at the intimate Cinema Bar just outside Santa Monica, every Monday night. Lucky us. Take advantage. Mon 9 p.m., Cinema Bar, Culver City, no cover.
RECOMMENDED:
TOLEDO DIAMOND – Who’s been showing up even longer than the Hot Club, with a very different but also virtuosic show? His decades-long Sunday night residency at Santa Monica’s Harvelle’s, the oldest blues bar in LA (almost a century!), is the stuff of myth. Toledo choreographs a truly unique show, a blend of ‘50s hipster jazz and his dancing dames and a most modern smokin’ hot band that gets better all the time. Toledo is perhaps the longest-running proof that Santa Monica is a City of the Arts. (Yes, you bet, this is art.)Sun 9 p.m., Harvelle’s, Santa Monica, $13.
TV RECOMMENDATIONS:
“THE DAILY SHOW” – Mon – Thurs 11 p.m., COMEDY CENTRAL.
“HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU” – You can learn a lot from this show, but, nah, it’s all about the newsworthy jokes and satire. Sat 9 p.m., CNN.
‘“DARK WINDS” – Yes, Season 4 of this superb series of murder mysteries set on the Navajo Reservation in the ‘70s, based on the world-famous novels by UNM Journalism professor Tony Hillerman, and those of his daughter Anne, is over (renewed for Season 5!), but is available streaming on AMC+. This very different series has consistently delivered well-written, acted, and edited psychological thriller murder mysteries set deep in Diné country, and unfolds from the Navajo perspective, ingrained over centuries in the same NM-AZ desert territory. Nearly everyone involved in the production is Native American, most Navajo. There is a reason, or many reasons, why Robert Redford persisted for decades to get author Tony Hillerman’s tales brought to the screen, and finally launched it as executive producer (with George R.R. Martin) before he died. Stories have been mashed together seamlessly, along with novels by Tony’s daughter Anne Hillerman, who took up where her father left off, quite successfully, with all 10 of her novels making the NY Times bestseller lists. Binge-watch and you will marvel that you experienced such all-around top drawer filmmaking, and that you were also transported to another world you had no clue existed. Oh yeah, and the cinematography, the landscape, is breathtaking. AMC+.
COMING ATTRACTIONS (also recommended): “BLUE KISS,” Ruskin Group Theatre, 4/24-5/17; VERDI “FALSTAFF,” L.A. OPERA, 4/26, 30, 5/2, 6, 10; “HAVE I GOT NEWS FOR YOU,” CNN Sat 9 p.m.; TOLEDO DIAMOND, Harvelle’s Santa Monica, 4/25, 5/3, 10, 17; TAKE 6, Blue Note LA, 4/30-5/3; STANLEY CLARKE’S SANTA MONICA INTERNATIONAL JAZZ FESTIVAL, BroadStage, 5/1-9; MESHELL NDEGEOCELLO, Blue Note LA, 5/4, 5; LA SANTA CECILIA, Fonda Theatre, 5/7;
DOWN THE ROAD (also recommended): PACIFIC OPERA PROJECT, “ZORRO,” San Gabriel Mission Playhouse, 5/16, 17’ TOLEDO DIAMOND, Harvelle’s, 5/24, 31; MOZART “THE MAGIC FLUTE,” L.A. OPERA, 5/30, 6/6, 11, 14, 17, 21.
Charles Andrews has listened to a lot of music of all kinds, including more than 3,500 live shows. He has lived in Santa Monica for 40 years and wouldn’t live anywhere else in the world. Really. Send love and/or hate mail to: therealmrmusic@gmail.com
