The Indianapolis Star from Indianapolis, Indiana • Page 24

02 THE INDIANAPOLIS STAR TUESDAY, AUGUST 9, 1994 People SIGN Compiled from staff and wire reports by Ellen McKinney COOLIfj' IT a 'Penthouse' causes move of Tonya's ex 1 I i I I i I I like of Breeden. As Carpenter says in the film: "What they succeeded (in doing) was taking a trivial prank, something of little legal consequence, and turning it into Just the national forum that Bill Breeden was hoping to have. I think they were aware of that, and they were will- ing to pay that price, because they Just could not stand the Insult of their favorite son's Image." Goldsmith, 31, and Day. 33, are uncertain how Odonites will receive The Times of a Sign, although the Oberlin College gradu-ates believe they treated most of their interview subjects fairly. Ex- cept for a stony silence encountered one morning at a local hang-' out, the Odon Malt Shop, during filming, they said last week that persuading townspeople to talk was fairly easy.

Financing the film was much harder. The duo borrowed most of the necessary equipment, drove to Odon from New York City in Gold- smith's compact car, and stayed at Day's parents' house during filming. Day has known Breeden for about 12 years because Day's father, A. Garnet Day is, like Breeden, an activist minister In the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ). An $8,000 grant from the Indi- ana Humanities Council paid for the editing and assembling of the i documentary.

"The hardest thing was having all this great footage in the can and trying to convince people what its potential was," said Goldsmith. As The Times oj a Sign reaches the air, everyone involved has moved on to other things. Gold- smith is producing a film about traditional fishermen on the At-," lantic coast from Nova Scotia to the Caribbean. Day had intended to be studying in Yemen this sum--? mer, but a civil war which broke 5 out there in May has disrupted his' plans. Renewed faith As for Breeden, he's driving trucks to raise money for a planned 43-acre retreat to teach nonviolent civil disobedience near his home outside Spencer.

The sign incident had a positive effect on his life. "It renewed my faith in com- mon, ordinary people," he He still remembers his surprise at seeing his high school history teacher selling T-shirts with Iran- Contra messages on the street during a Poindexter parade through town. "That was phe- nomenal. I never dreamed he would risk losing his job like that. "Before this all happened, some members of my family tought I was totally Insane a flaming radical who'd been duped by the communists.

The incident with the street sign convinced them that I'm not the crazy one." Associated Press Three unidentified Mennonite girls, wearing their faith's traditional garb, stand in an artificial waterfall in Lancaster, Pa. Continued from Page 1 wipes out the town." Breeden, 45, said last week, calling from a truck stop in New York. "I'm still amazed by how much attention this little act of guerrilla theater got." Breeden's story is the subject of The Times of a Sign: A Folk History of the Iran-contra Scandal, a darkly comic documentary airing today on public television's P.O.V. series. Filmmakers David Goldsmith and Indianapolis nativeHowe High School graduate Steve Day don't have to look hard to find the inherent absurdity.

The Justice system comes down hard on a hippie for stealing a sign, while the officials involved in all the government lying and killing essentially walk away scot-free. The documentary is a satiric fable about politics and justice In America. The Times of a Sign weaves its entertaining narrative through newspaper headlines, national and local news coverage, and Interviews with Breeden. his family, townspeople and such columnists as The Indianapolis Star's Dan Carpenter and The Indianapolis News' Richard K. Shull.

In quick fashion, the documentary relates how Breeden stole the sign and left behind a note saying, "There are some graduates of this high school who believe that the government does not have the right to lie to its people. Lo, how the mighty have fallen. (Signed) M.W.L.F. Midwest Liberation Front." Breeden made up the name and organization on the spot. Later, he said he was holding the sign hostage for $30 million in ransom not so coincidentally, the same amount of money at issue in the arms-for-hostages deal.

The Breeden interviewed here seems highly irreverent at first. Jamming with his family on old gospel songs, the activist with scruffy beard and ponytail sings, "I'm a part-time preacher and full-time truck driver, ordained by the 'Close Cover Before Striking" School of Ministry." But as The Times of a Sign continues, it depicts a more complex man continuing to rebel against his strict Nazarene upbringing and holding deep concern for the people of Nicaragua, inspired by his wife Glenda's experiences there. Carpenter's view This is a far cry from the "local boy gone bad, the opposite of John Poindexter," as described by Odon Journal editor John Myers, or the "nary-do-well" described by Haskins Litter owner Joseph Haskins. The town's conservatives come off badly in their dis AFLOAT Continued from Page 1 berg's "on-off" switches. "People can learn to get up for something, then let go when it's over," Montgomery says.

"It's like calluses. If you do manual labor with your hands you develop calluses. The whole body has the ability to do that, if you do it gradually." Another example of Toffler's successful person of the future is Bergier, the crossing guard. "Traffic is brutal. Drivers can't drive.

They can't even read. Some of them give me the finger. You to take them like a dose of Epsom salts. Let 'em go right through you." We can be like Bergier, Montgomery says: "Decide that, Just because the other guy is an idiot, it doesn't have to be our problem." Still, these are merely tactics. Even if we become perfect clones of Wolfberg and Bergierwe can't beat all psychic stress.

Can't achieve perfect job security. Can't cut traffic. Keep friends from moving away. We need more than tactics: we need a grander, more life-enhancing strategy to be happy in spite of stress. "Our best weapon," says Ja-cobson, the psychologist, "is cognitive behavior therapy making people aware of what we call automatic thoughts little negative blips, a word, an image that Just seem to come on at random times during the day.

We flash back to last night's argument with our spouse, to the boss striding past this morning one is always trying to make it hit the In the (remake), the same character gets out only a few initial words of that nice metaphor, only to be interrupted "Have you any idea why (screenwriter) Douglas McGrath chose to drown out one of the most imaginative lines?" Boyar writes that he "can't supply an explanation for the omission (Jacobs) asks about. I have brought this up simply because it comforts me to know that when they are not kissing babies or posturing on C-SPAN, at least some of our elected officials make time to ponder life's eternal questions." Dam right it's timed to get free publicity Timed to coincide with the recent opening of the movie The Little Rascals is the release of Darn Right It's Butch: Memories of Our Gang (Morgin Press written by Tommy Bond, the original Butch. Bond describes what it was like to be a 5-year-old actor in 1930s Hollywood, earning $50 a week and wearing thrift shop clothes as costumes. The book traces Bond's life from his Rascals days to graduation from Van Nuys High School in 1945. to his role of Jimmy Olsen in the early Superman films.

At least she received compliments on outfit Being host of the Academy Awards telecast wasn't as much fun as it looked, according to Whoopi Goldberg. "1 took a lot of grief for that (Oscar) show. I had to read reviews that said how dreadfully boring it was. At least they said I looked nice, which was kind of a backhanded compliment: 'The show sucked, but she looked "For some reason," she told TV Guide, "people assumed that I was going to be tactless. I have never, ever been tactless on prime-time television.

I save that for HBO." A year older Former Georgia Sen. Herman Talmadge is 81. Former baseball manager Ralph Houk is 75. Actor Sam Elliott is 50. Actress Melanie Griffith is 37.

to record." Locally, his production credit is found on the new Beautiful Auth-enic Zoo Gods disc and forthcoming projects by the Lovemeknots and the Chosen Few. "I really feel like my whole career has been helped by the local music community," Mahern says. "I'm a sum total of all the information that I've gained from all the artists I've worked with, like John Strohm (of Antenna) and Lisa Germano. They're just real geniuses, and to be in sessions with them and then come out and be able to apply what I've learned, it's been great. "Strohm totally helped my career by bringing the Blake Babies here to record and letting me do those Antenna records.

Most of the business I get even now is from the list of clients I've worked with in the past." Other music news A festival of world music is coming to Bloomington. Organizers are working on a show that will present 20 acts of world music everything from African to Indian music at the John Wal-dron Arts Center on Oct. 7 and 8. Interested In volunteering to get the first Lotus World Music and Arts Festival, Bloomington, off the ground? Call (812) 323-1200. The City Radio Project the group trying to start a community radio station in Indianapolis continues to work toward its goal of being on the air by late 1995.

Representatives will be at the Penrod Arts Fair on Sept. 10, giving away ice cream and handing out information about its plans for the station. For more immediate information, call (317) 466-2800. Sunrise Being featured in Penthouse has gained Tonya Harding's ex-husband, Jeff Gillooly, a move to a safer, less populated facility. The magazine's nude pic- rsii.k.

torial of Harding and Gillooly engaging in a series of sex acts brought threats from fellow inmates at the Eastern Oregon Correctional Institute in Pendleton. "Prisoners have been passing around copies of Penthouse and making Jokes over certain aspects of Gillooly's anatomy," said a prison official who asked that his name be withheld, "and with some of the jokes becoming serious threats we decided that it would be in the best interest of Mr. Gillooly's safety as well as the collective safety of all inmates to relocate him Gillooly was moved last Thursday to Snake River Correctional Institute, in Ontario, Ore. A minimum-grade facility, it has about 280 prisoners, few of them violent. Gillooly, serving time in the assault on piympic skater Nancy Kerrigan, will not be eligible for parole until February 1996.

Still time to swap stub for Mellencamp ticket Holders of ticket stubs from John Mel-lencamp's Dance Naked sneak preview concerts at Indiana University auditorium can exchange those stubs for lawn spats fnr Mellencamp oneofMellen-camp's three Deer Creek Music Center concerts, Sept. 27, 28 and 30. For those without ticket stubs, seats are still available for all three concerts. They're $23.50 pavilion, $20 lawn. For information, call Ticketmaster, (317) 239-5151.

PRODUCER Continued from Page 1 Though some producers have their own sound, and others can put their stamp on records by changing song arrangements or highlighting certain songs, Ma-hern tries to be as invisible as possible. "We wanted to make a real organic-sounding record" uncluttered, with natural instrument sounds, he says. "That's the kind of records I like to make, anyway. They're a band that's kind of driven by the acoustic guitar, but on all their records, the acoustic guitar is just washed out. It doesn't sound like an acoustic guitar." On Full Empty, it does.

Mahern plays to the band's strengths the insistent acoustic-guitar sound and Jeff Heiskell's distinctive lyrics are always in the forefront. The Judybats write songs that can be breezy or moody, funny or depressing. This is the most natural sound they've had on any of their four records. A local booster "Every producer might have a different goal," Mahern says. "Some might be to have a big radio hit, some might be to please the guy (who signed them to their label).

Mine is to please my-. self and the band." An unabashed booster of Indianapolis (his brother is Louis Mahern, the Democratic candidate for mayor in 1991), Mahern graduated from Arsenal Technical High School and studied electronic engineering at ITT Technical Institute. Mahern. his wife, Julie, and their two children live on the Northside. Terre Haute TV Star Staff Report Terre Haute's WBAK (Channel 38) is switching network affiliations from ABC to Fox, Fox officials announced Monday.

The station, owned and operated by Bahakel Communications will begin the switch on Friday, when It broadcasts Fox's first pre-season NFL game. Bahakel owns and operates Fox affiliates in North Carolina. Illinois, Tennessee and Mississippi. Previously. Fox's badcast sig TV win iiiihuw un inijiiq US ill Ml Michael and Lisa Marie visit hospitalized boy Michael Jackson and his wife, Lisa Marie Presley, returned quietly to a children's hospital in Budapest, Hungary, Sunday, to see a 4-year-old boy they have promised to help get a liver transplant.

"They gave the child a pink bunny rabbit and a pink and green Dino," Dr. Marta Bognar said Monday. A liver disorder keeps Bela Far-kas from digesting food. He has been given only about one year to live if he doesn't get the transplant, which doctors say must be performed in the West. Doctors say the boy was abandoned by his mother and is rarely visited by his father.

The hospital director. Dr. Ta-mas Dizseri, said that the pair has offered to buy medical equipment for the intensive care unit. Dizseri said he hoped they follow through it 4 1 r- if DISC-MAKERS: The Judybats sound" on their new disc, Full Mahern hopes the Judybats' disc will bring him more major-label work and attract more bands to central Indiana, where making records is significantly cheaper than it is on either coast. "There are three world-class studios here within a two-hour drive of each other," he says, referring to the Lodge in Indianapolis.

Echo Park in Bloomington and Sandi Patti's Pinebrook studio in Alexandria. "And I'm right in the middle. on helping Bela. "We do not want to see the little boy become a toy of the pop world, but the pop world can do a lot for him," Dizseri said. Jackson and his bride, the daughter of Elvis Presley, arrived Friday in Budapest, where Jackson is filming a promotional video for his new album.

History. Jacobs wonders why great line bit the dust Rep. Andy Jacobs Jr. (D-Ind.) has been exposed as a movie buff. Orlando Sentinel movie critic Jay Boyar writes of receiving a letter from Jacobs concerning the 1950 classic Born Yesterday and Bo-yar's review of the 1993 remake recently released on video.

"In the original screenplay," Jacobs wrote, "the William Hold-en character says toward the end, the founders gave us an excellent piece of government machinery. It's a shame that some- a It Sire Records Co. have accomplished a "natural Empty. "In the past, there hasn't been access to the kind of studios that there are right now. And now, when 1 get calls from people saying, 'Can you make a record in I can send them the specs for these studios." He's already finished the debut disc by a Connecticut band called the Swansons that's scheduled for release on InterscopeAtlantic Records.

But even if more work doesn't materialize immediately, "there's plenty of good local stuff clude carrying all the network's NFL broadcasts. Station officials have not announced when WBAK will begin carrying FOX's prime-time lineup and the Fox Children's Network. Some Terre Haute cable systems carry the programming of Indianapolis ABC affiliate WRTV (Channel 6). But it was unclear how ABC might replace WBAK. Warren Denker.

head of ABC's affiliate relations for the Midwest, did not return phone without saying hello. "You pick up on anything that could possibly be negatively inter-I preted." i Such worriers are taught to pay' conscious attention to such nega- tive thoughts, to refute them by rational analysis. ii i Do more to be happy We can do even more, says Kell, the happiness trainer. "We have to go beyond relax- ing, which is turning off negative feelings. We have to get to feeling deeply, expressing strong emo- tions.

"My idea came from observing' that if I could get people to think about experiences that had made them feel good, all their physiological reactions went in the right direction heartbeat slowed, blood pressure dropped. "Think of something that is not just positive, but really heartwarming like watching your child sleep at night. Remembering the electricity of that first time you brushed hands with the one you loved." It's hard to retrieve such happy thoughts, he says. The trick is to experience them more intensely when they happen, making them 2 easier to remember. "If you're driving and you see a pretty scene a rainbow, maybe say to yourself aloud: This is one of those moments.

Experienced it fully. Smile with all your smile muscles. Notice all the sensory elements: See how it smells, touch" any textures, listen to the sounds, 2 notice the color." Adele Kleinman understands that, despite the stresses of her North Miami Beach real estate 5 agent's job. "Two weeks ago, something sad happened to me. I could have wal- lowed in it.

I chose not to. I called up a girlfriend and we went danc-1 Ing." Helpful ideas, all. They boil down to a single philosophy: The onus is on us, Bunky. We've got grab for the gusto. Ain't nobody -f going to hand it to us.

Maybe our motto for the future will have to be the prayer that Pembroke Pines computer sales- man Frank Martle found in his office E-mail: "Lord, help me change the things that can be changed, ac-, cept the things that can't, and i have the patience not to blow away the SOB who Just cut me off in traffic." station will switch to Fox nal was not available In Terre Haute, the nation's 138th largest television market. Some cable systems carried the fourth network's programming via Indianapolis Fox affiliate WXIN (Channel 59). "Fox's recent push to strengthen its affiliate base and the company's acquisition of the NFL were two key elements in our decision to switch WBAK to Fox," said Beverly Bahakel Poston, vice president of Bahakel's television division. WBAK's programrrng plans in The Features Department is responsible for the content of this section, from feature stories and entertainment reviews to columns and the comics. Call us with your suggestions, questions or story ideas, between 9 a.m.

and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday. Features Editor Dennis Royalty 633-1194 Assistant Features Editor Ruth Holladay 633-9405 Weekend Calendar Terre Dawson 633-9407 Toll free (800)669-7827.