Waving the Baton

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Most Happy Fellow: Montecito’s happiest man is probably Ty Warner. Remember, he bought the wrecked Miramar, aiming to rebuild it, and was hailed as a local hero. But when he saw that powerful Montecito forces, including those that challenged his upgrades of the Biltmore and Coral Casino, were going to give him a hard time at the Miramar, he bailed. Even a patient man has limits. Sold the Miramar to mall magnate and possible L.A. mayoral candidate Rick Caruso. Now, after last week’s contentious Montecito Planning Commission hearing and a second such hearing scheduled for next month, it appears that either way the commish goes, the whole shebang will be appealed to the Board of Supervisors. Look for a sure Caruso OK there from the developer-happy Supes majority, then probably to court. Ty, a billionaire with plenty else on his plate, and hardly needing the money or the headaches, is surely smiling about his own decision to opt out.

On the Beat

Kabaretti Staying: When the word got out that S.B. Symphony music director-conductor Nir Kabaretti is a finalist for the baton post at the Eugene Symphony, folks wondered if Nir would dump the Santa Barbara job if he got the Oregon nod. Short answer: No, according to S.B. Symphony executive director John Robinson. Even if he beats out the other two finalists in September, Nir plans to combine the two positions. Robinson, working closely with his Eugene counterpart, says they’ll schedule dates so that Nir can fly in from his home in Florence, Italy, mount the podium in Santa Barbara, then head north to take the baton in Eugene. But Santa Barbara, where Nir just signed a contract to take him through the 2011-12 season, will remain his No. 1 commitment, Robinson told me. Being so highly rated by Eugene, beating out a long list of hopefuls, is apparently a feather in Nir’s hat. Eugene, it seems, has quite a track record for selecting top conductors while they’re up and coming.

Age of Aquarius: It seems like only yesterday — war protests and youthful rebellion against conservative society — and now we can relive it with the hippie rock musical Hair. (Or are we living it today?) Anyway, the Santa Barbara High Theatre Arts department will stage the once-controversial musical on July 31 and August 2 before taking the show on the road to the Fringe Festival in Scotland. Info at 966-9101, Ext. 220 or Santa Barbara High School Theater.

Didn’t Go Away Mad: Some people would be mighty irked after standing in line for hours to buy one of those new-fangled iphones on the first day they were being sold, only to walk away without one. But not Chris Edwards.

“My wife and I stood in line for over four hours outside the Goleta AT&T store to buy her a new iphone. I was there simply as moral support — she is the one in our family with the exotic taste in high-tech gadgets. I simply plan to inherit her slick razor phone and fire it up with the SIM card from my old, and oh so passé, cell phone.”

(I don’t even own a cell phone and have no idea what Chris is talking about, but read on.)

“We arrived at the store at 7:30 a.m., number 82 in the line, I was told. After four hours-plus and a host of rumors and contradictory information from both the staff and fellow linees, we eventually walked away with a receipt for around $200 and the promise that my wife's phone will arrive in ‘three to five days.’ So there we were, a morning shot to hell plus the gas investment to Goleta and back from our home in downtown Santa Barbara, but with no exotic gadget to unwrap and no dense manual to decipher.

“We looked at each other and agreed that despite her missed sessions at the gym and the fact that I was slipping a deadline in my work commitments, we were not upset or angry or even slightly irritated. Why not, you ask? Are we hopelessly type-B personalities with nothing better to do with our time than sit around for a morning in a 100-plus person line that reached three fourths around the building?

“We think the answer lies in the enjoyment of a shared experience. We, and some of the nicest people, were thrown together in a common quest. We and our new-found friends faced the experience together with cheerfulness and optimism. A cheerfulness and optimism that survived in the face of the dreadful rumors that ran through the line — they only have ten phones — Santa Maria has 150 — downtown has plenty but there are people there in tents. You get the idea. One of our co-waiters was getting blow-by-blow reports from other lines outside other stores over his Blackberry. People drove by and slowed to photograph the line or to ask what we were lining up for. ‘Bread,’ shouted back one wag with a Russian accent.

“Perhaps we should have ordered our phone over the Internet, perhaps we should have waited a few weeks and simply walked into an empty store and picked one up. I don't think so. In the final analysis I believe that rather than losing a morning we gained one. How often these days do any of us let go of our schedule for a few hours and sit around talking and sharing an experience? For me, getting the new iphone is one of those experiences about which people say ‘I always remember where I was and what I was doing when —.’ You fill in the blank.”

(I tried to fill in some blanks by calling two local AT&T stores Monday without success getting through; maybe I should be using an iphone.)

Great Scott: Scott Hadly, former Santa Barbara News-Press reporter who quit and then went to the Ventura County Star, is embedded with U.S. forces in Iraq. Excerpt from one blog: “Coming to Iraq for an embedded reporter involves an elaborate choreography of transportation, planes, helicopters, or ‘Rhinos,’ a sort of monster truck armored plated kind of bus. For photographer James Lee and me it amounted to three days of slight discomfort, boredom, and no sleep. For someone like me who can't sit still for very long, it sometimes felt torturous. Our time here will be dictated by the courtesy of the military. We are their guests and as such that limits the kinds of stories we can do. The war itself, where everybody is a potential target, is most limiting of all, making it very difficult to talk to talk to Iraqis who don't have a connection with the military. Beyond that it also changes what you see.”

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