Arts DEVO

Man bites dog’s owner According to DEVO family legend: Everyone was gathered at the window of my grandma’s house, looking out at the back yard at an adorable little preschool Arts DEVO as he stuck his fat lips through a hole in the fence to give the sweet dog next door a kiss. “Ah, how cute,” they said, as I squatted down, slowly pushed my fat little face toward the dog’s waiting muzzle, and quickly turned back toward the house to reveal a steady flow of bright red blood gushing from the hole that the neighbor’s dog had torn into my upper lip. So cute!

Despite the fact that I have had the scar on my lip for the past 40 years to remind me of my brush with those canines, I have never been afraid of dogs. But that’s in danger of changing. Over the last couple of weeks I have been bitten by two different dogs while jogging on trails in Upper Bidwell Park, and it’s starting to make me a little paw shy. The first biter was a friendly looking cattle dog running with its owner, and as we met it tried to herd me by taking a couple of snaps at my shorts, nipping my leg once. And the following week, as I breezed past a pack of dogs trotting ahead of their owners, the last in line suddenly turned its head and bit me right in the thigh, drawing a little blood and leaving a bruise that remains a week a later. (The owners were very apologetic, and confirmed that the dog had its rabies shots.)

I am actually not overly concerned about having been bitten, and I don’t blame the dogs for any of this. In all the cases I’m guessing that they were just scared or being protective. I just want to take a moment to say to all the dog owners who are taking advantage of the wonderful freedom of Upper Park that if your dog isn’t trained to recognize that someone running quickly toward you on the trails isn’t a threat, then your dog isn’t ready to be off-leash on the trails.

Oh, and while I’m talking to dog owners using the park: Pick up your bags of dog shit. There’s no such thing as dog-shit fairies who roam the miles of trails picking up after your pet, no matter how much you really, really wish there were.

Judy, come back! I don’t know where Judy-Lynne Alley and her mesmerizing facial expressions have gone, but now more than ever I wish the quirky KHSL/KNVN news anchor was not missing from my television screen. Two new things I’ve just learned about Alley: One, she raps. Go to Alley’s Facebook page, scroll down to the video titled “2012: The W(rap)” and watch and listen to the sassy anchor as she gives the rhymedown of the year’s top stories (Neil Armstrong = “The outer-space boss!”) Two, she has a rap name and that rap name is Cavi R! And she released an album that you can buy on iTunes and Amazon. And that album is called Gansta Planz! And I think I might faint. How badass is it to have in our midst a news anchor who made a rap album called Gangsta Planz?! Watch out Rob Blair, there’s a new local celebrity in the making.

RIP Katie It’s never easy to lose someone we know, but this time it’s especially rough. On Friday, Feb. 1, Chico musician Kathleen Kelley died. She was 28. No details have been released about the cause of death. The music community and her friends knew her as Katie, and she was one of the more visible bassists in Chico over the last several years, playing in such bands as Candy Apple, Dirty Sister and Shivaree. There are so many people I know who are in a lot of pain right now, and my heart and thoughts are with all of Kelley’s friends and family as they try to deal with losing someone so young.