Boise News

Bob Wire Has a Point (It's Under His Cowboy Hat)

I knew I’d like this guy from the moment we were introduced. Underneath the “Hello! My Name Is” on his paper name tag, he’d scrawled “NONE OF YOUR GODDAMN BUSINESS.” A man after my own heart.

Clarence Worly (he took his nom de guerre from Christian Slater’s character in ‘True Romance’) joined my fraternity, Delta Tau Chi, in Pocatello in the early 80’s, when we were occasionally attending the alleged institute of higher learning there. We put a lot of effort into putting the “high” in “higher learning,” and that led to our inevitable frat band, Rotten Tuna. We played sorority mixers and local taverns for a couple of years, culminating in our professional peak, a last-place finish in the local Battle of the Bands in 1984.

Why am I telling you all this? Well, if you’re a regular reader of my column, you’ve no doubt seen Worly’s punchy, profane prose in the comments section. He frequently comes to my defense, wielding his opinion like a cinder block. To say his writing is edgy is an understatement. It’s like saying a corned beef and PBR popcorn fart is “unpleasant.” If you like reading internet commentary that occasionally makes you spit coffee onto your keyboard, he’s your man.

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idaho legislature

Members of the Idaho Legislature’s Joint Finance-Appropriations Committee (JFAC) peppered Mike Gwartney, director of the Department of Administration, with questions about the Idaho Education Network (IEN), with a number of them expressing concern that money was being spent to build “networks on top of networks” rather than leveraging existing network infrastructure.

While no state money is at stake—the IEN received $3 million in stimulus funding for its first year, and is receiving approximately $3 million per year for the next two years from the J.A. and Kathryn Albertson Foundation—any money spent duplicating existing infrastructure can’t be used to improve access in unserved and underserved areas, such as rural Idaho.

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New West Theater Review

This month the Denver Center for the Performing Arts is presenting the world premier of “Eventide,” playwright Eric Schmiedl’s faithful adaptation of Kent Haruf’s novel, directed by Kent Thompson.  Two years ago Schmiedl turned Haruf’s beloved novel Plainsong into a winning play, and this time he works with darker material, but nevertheless manages to reveal the abundant humor in Haruf’s dialogue.

“Plainsong” told the story of the McPheron brothers, two old bachelor ranchers living on the outskirts of the fictional prairie town of Holt, Colorado, coaxed into sheltering a pregnant teenage girl, Victoria Roubideaux, who had been thrown out by her mother.  They formed a strong, improvised family, and “Eventide” picks up on their lives a few years later, when Victoria’s daughter Katie is two years old, and the McPheron brothers are reluctantly preparing to see them off to Fort Collins, where Victoria will attend college. 

Philip Pleasants and Mike Hartman return to reprise the roles of Harold and Raymond McPheron, respectively, that they played in “Plainsong,” and they once again prove irresistible, two elderly rural gentlemen adept in cattle rearing chores but startled by modern life, unaccustomed to dancing, socializing, and fielding the amorous advances of women.  Their interaction and dialogue, which closely follows that in Haruf’s novel, is hilarious.

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GUEST COMMENTARY

Want to spend a week this summer with some of the nation’s best-known outdoor writers, practicing the craft of outdoor writing in writer-friendly Missoula? 

The Outdoor Writers Association of America (OWAA) will host its first Goldenrod Writing Workshop at the University of Montana in Missoula August 1-7, 2010. Open to both novice communicators and published professionals, the week-long workshop is designed to improve skills in outdoor, nature and environmental writing. 

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BULLETIN BOARD

This information was provided by the Wildlands Network. NewWest’s bulletin board offers press releases with a wide variety of views and news about the West.

DeBeque, Colorado—A DNA test of scat samples is all that remains before a western Colorado ranch owner knows for sure if wild wolves are present on his land.

Paul R. Vahldiek, Jr., majority shareholder and CEO of The High Lonesome Ranch, a mixed use landscape sprawling across Colorado’s west slope northeast of Grand Junction, awaits results of the DNA test as the final piece of evidence needed to confirm wolf habitation. One of the ranch managers and an expert wildlife tracker have already reported actual sightings of wolves, and positively identified tracks and howling on the vast acreage.

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Big Sky Bum Out

They’re not on the ski slopes. They’re not in the bars. Have all the ski bums left Big Sky?

“A lot of guys are skiing backcountry now because it’s free,” said John the physical therapist. “Also, a lot of them worked construction to support their skiing habits. Those jobs don’t exist any more.”

A footnote to the current recession is its effect on Big Sky’s ski bum culture—girls and guys who live to ski and will work for ski passes or at part-time jobs that permit time off on powder days.

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