None of the experts can seem to agree

If it’s influenza type A or influenza type B

I had thought of the shots and then I forgot it

But whichever the strain, I know that I’ve got it!

My eyes are all red and my nose is all runny

My throat is on fire, I’ve cramps in my tummy

My stomach is queasy, my head’s in a fog

The hell with the type, I’m sick as a dog

You tell me that soon I’ll be on the mend

So I’m hanging in loose, but it’s at the wrong end

Then you boldly proclaim that it’s only the flu

Well you ought to know, since I caught it from you!

Geraldine Forer Spagnoli

In 1993, I donated my property in Ramirez Canyon to the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy because they had an excellent reputation in protecting the environment and were seen as excellent stewards of the habitat of the Santa Monica Mountains.

It was my understanding that the property I donated would be used for environmental education and research. The only public purpose that I was aware of was the intention to create a small conference center for scientists, academics and environmentalists.

From the start, when I donated my land, I was concerned for my neighbors, the neighborhood and the traffic situation. Accordingly, I specifically had the following language inserted in the Memorandum of Understanding signed by both parties: “Donor’s intent in making this gift is to provide a location and facilities for the establishment of the Streisand Center for Conservancy Studies (“Center”). Donee and its affiliated nonprofit, the Mountains Conservancy Foundation, will plan and operate the Center as a place for advanced academic and applied studies directed towards solution of the most pressing conservation and natural ecosystem management problems, and will carefully evaluate all relevant issues related to its use, including vehicular access and impact on the neighboring community.” It recently has come to my attention that the conservancy has petitioned the California Coastal Commission to use sections of the property as a public park. I join with the concerns of my former neighbors that the land will now no longer be used for its original intent.

Since the property was donated in 1993, the conservancy has decided to set up an administrative office on the property and has conducted events to help defray the costs of administration and upkeep of the property. My former neighbors have contacted me in the past to keep me apprised of their feelings and points of view. I have had my staff contact the conservancy and inquire about the issues at hand. However, while the center has historically carried my name, I have had no control over its ongoing activities and operations since the time the land was donated. In addition, I have requested and the conservancy has agreed that the center will no longer carry my name.

In summary, I am not in agreement with the proposed use of the land, my name will no longer be affiliated with the property, and I ask you to give every consideration to the concerns of my neighbors and the community that are before you today.

Barbra Streisand

“Sakina’s Restaurant” and “Over the River and Through the Woods”

The fun of “Sakina’s Restaurant” is watching its writer and performer Aasif Mandvi create its many characters. The poignancy of the play is in Mandvi’s lyrical telling of the American immigrant experience, melded with brief myths of India.

This one-man, nearly two-hour play, directed and developed by Kim Hughes, in production at the Odyssey Theatre, follows an ebullient young man named Azgi, who leaves his home in India to pursue a “better life,” starting as a waiter at Sakina’s Restaurant in downtown Manhattan.

Mandvi mimes, he dances, he has an eye and ear for characters — young or old, male or female. He plunges heart and head into the immediately recognizable family members of Sakina’s.

The patriarch Hakim tries to hold his family together by tradition while pleasing his American customers; Mandvi creates him with his head perpetually cocked to the left, as if the telephone were permanently clamped to his ear.

Hakim’s wife, Farrida, sacrificed body and soul to fulfill Hakim’s American dream; Mandvi creates her with a light voice, “feminine” hand gestures and a wayward scarf that seems to have a life of its own.

Mandvi expertly captures the energy, stance and speech cadences of the 10-year-old son. He tugs at the hem of daughter Sakina’s short knit dress as he creates this very Americanized bride-to-be with a thick New York accent.

And no story of an Indian restaurant would be complete without a customer — an American customer — who demands extra spicy food, No. 5 on the restaurant’s scale. “Number five is not a real thing you can eat,” Azgi frantically pleads with him, “even in India.”

As the play begins, Azgi’s mother presses a pebble into his hand and asks him to recall the story of the stone and the river. He can’t recall it. But as the play ends, he remembers the story of a boy who received a beautiful stone but threw it in the river to make it a diamond. It floated downstream and became deposited at the stream’s end with countless other pebbles. The boy spent his days searching for it but gave up when he realized he couldn’t find it because he never really knew what it looked like.

Mandvi has looked at each pebble, memorized and then re-enacted each one, showing us we are all the same and yet different enough to warrant a moment of individual attention.

“Sakina’s Restaurant,” plays Wednesdays through Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 7 p.m., matinees Feb. 13 and 27 only, through March 5, at the Odyssey Theatre, 2055 S. Sepulveda Blvd., West Los Angeles. Tel. 477.2055.

“Over the River and Through the Woods”

There are a sweetness and a familiarity about “Over the River and Through the Woods,” by playwright Joe DiPietro, and a reminder that there is nothing like family — for better or worse.

In one charming scene, the family plays the board game Trivial Pursuit. Grandson Nick plays strictly to win, precisely following the rules and testing his mental mettle. His four grandparents play it as a springboard for conversation, a chance for human interaction.

At the newly refurbished and reopened El Portal Center for the Arts, the production shows how plays can share this dichotomy; some are designed to hone opinions or probe emotions, others seem created for a warm and fuzzy evening out.

In this case, the production favors the grandparents’ modality and the warm fuzzies.

Grandson Nick lives in New York. His parents and sister fled to the far corners of the country, leaving him with four doting grandparents, not coincidentally Italians all. As the play begins, he has something to announce to the four: He has been offered a promotion and transfer to Seattle — the fourth corner of the country.

The play asks Nick, and of course the audience, to decide whether the grandparents are selfishly manipulating him into staying or whether they have a legitimate and ancient belief that families must stay together.

Directed by Asaad Kelada, the play has a pleasing cohesiveness. But each character is a little grating, and while they must love one another because they are family, the audience has no such constraint.

Stuart Fratkin plays Nick with a pleasant balance between naturalness and manic frustration. Joseph Campanella, Joseph Cardinale, Carol Lawrence and Erica Yohn are his grandparents. Shannon O’Hurley plays a “visitor” to their home.

Cardinale delivers a meaty monologue, about his childhood and his later return to the old country, that stands above the rest. Lawrence has an entrancing presence and is a wonderful casting choice in lieu of the traditional, mortadella-shaped Italian grandma.

The theater is warm and inviting, with good sight lines. But opening night had its share of missed light cues and muffed lines, and the play was too often disrupted by a banging sound from backstage — mishaps that should have been corrected after previews.

A slight echo from the theater’s acoustics spoiled some of the play’s intimacy and may be responsible for the muffling of some of Campanella’s delivery.

“Over the River and Through the Woods” plays through Feb. 6, Tuesdays through Sundays, plus weekend matinees, at El Portal Center for the Arts, 5269 Lankershim Blvd., North Hollywood. $35/$40/$42. Telecharge: 800.233.3123. Information: 818.508.4200.

I spent the better part of last week sitting through meetings where citizens were interacting with their government. Actually, interacting is not really the appropriate word. It was more like the government was acting and the citizens were reacting in horror and fear as a government seemed to be trying to bowl them over.

The first was the California Coastal Commission meeting in Santa Monica, where the commission was tackling the issue of the Streisand Center. Just what was it going to let the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy do with that cluster of buildings, located deep in the rear of Ramirez Canyon and accessible only via a private road through a very small, narrow, wooded canyon?

Originally, when it was donated, it was to be used as an environmental think tank for contemplative examination of environmental issues by environmental scholars.

As often happens with these large donated properties, it turned out to be a big white elephant, expensive to maintain, requiring a large staff and generating enormous water bills.

The conservancy decided to solve this financial problem by turning the place into a commercial event facility for weddings, bar mitzvahs, movie shoots and conferences. The canyon residents and the city went ballistic.

After much pushing and prodding, the Coastal Commission finally got the conservancy to file for a coastal permit. In the fall, the Coastal Commission staff, after reviewing the proposal, recommended it be denied. The conservancy said, “OK, we’ll try again,” and pulled the application back to modify it. A short time later, the conservancy returned, not with a revised project that was smaller and more environmentally sensitive than everyone had expected but with a substantially larger project. This time, the Coastal Commission staff looked it over and essentially said, “It looks fine to us,” and we more cynical observers immediately suspected the fix was in. There is no question in my mind if a private party had come in with anywhere near this kind of proposal to put in a commercial facility, the Coastal Commission staff would have just laughed at them.

Because of all the opposition and a parade of witnesses — hell, even Streisand told them to take her name off the center — the Coastal Commission did what bureaucracies do with a hot potato. They stalled the decision until a later date.

Make no mistake about it. This conservancy application is a show of pure political power. Joe Edmiston, executive director of the conservancy and a major environmental player in Southern California, is out to get what he wants and to show he has the muscle to make it happen.

My view is this is such a profoundly inappropriate use for that land, it’s not even a close call. The Coastal Commission ought to turn this down cold and send it back to the drawing board because if they don’t, it will be a pretty clear indication the Coastal Commission “talks the talk” but when up against somebody with some clout it doesn’t have the nerve to “walk the walk.” I hope I’m wrong, but it still feels like this deal is wired for the Coastal Commission to cave in.

On the local scene, there is another conflict brewing between government and the local citizens. This time, the government is the city of Malibu, which is flexing its muscles. The citizens, many from Point Dume and Malibu Park, are rapidly organizing to fight what they see as a very frightening local development. It’s called “code enforcement,” the process by which the government sees we obey the laws they pass.

We’ve got a new code enforcement officer, Gail Sumpter, and a number of citizens are very unhappy with her for what they feel is a very heavy-handed code enforcement philosophy. In all fairness to Sumpter, she didn’t make the rules, she inherited them when she got the job, but she unfortunately is the person on the firing line trying to enforce some very unpopular restrictions put on by our council. For example, there are unpermitted structure like barns and guest houses all over Point Dume and Malibu Park. Many have been there for years if not decades. We were told over and over again by a succession of political candidates and council members not to worry about the new zoning because we were “grandfathered in.” It turns out “grandfathering” is something quite different than we thought it was. You are grandfathered if what’s there was permissible at the time it was built, which means the current owner has to know when it was built and what the county codes were at the time and be able to prove it. It takes money to prove it. And if it turns out the owner is wrong, our council in its infinite wisdom has turned all these building violations into criminal offenses (meaning fines and jail types of criminal offenses). The message I took away from that meeting is people are scared.

I wish I could reassure you and say I had talked to Gail Sumpter, and she had been able to reassure me the enforcement was fair and even handed and the horror stories I heard were just that, horror stories. I did call her, and I did try to talk to her, but the problem is she’s not allowed to talk to me because of the city’s “employee no speak” policy, which says any communication with the press has to go through the department head or city manager.

This matter is going to the council Monday, when a group of citizens will be there to plead its case. If you have a problem with the “code enforcement” people, or have heard from the city prosecutor, or think you might be next, I suggest you show up at the council meeting and have your say during public comment. It’s time they stopped running us and we started running them. And if you don’t like what they have to say, remember it when you go to the ballot box in April.

For about 10 years now, I have taken it upon myself to pick up the litter on the most traveled, first three miles of Latigo Canyon Road. No court-mandated community service, no signs proclaiming the name of my business, no newspaper stories. I “just do it.”

On my twice-weekly sojourns, I pick up trash on one side of the street while driving down the hill on my way to work. I clean up the other side on my way home.

There is a lot of wear and tear on the old ’89, six-cylinder Dodge Caravan. The more litter there is, the more stops I must make. And with the inevitable increase in population and homes, so is the increase of litter. That’s how it is. The Realtors like what I do. It’s easier to sell homes in a clean canyon. Most residents who have been property owners for a period longer than the next price increase of their homes enjoy the absence of litter. Nine out of 10 drivers who pass me slow down from the posted 35 miles per hour speed limit to wave or honk in thanks.

The most common litter: cigarette packs, empty beer bottles, soda cans and fast food wrappers. I call this stuff “contractor trash.” I can’t blame the contractors. They are never around! And when you get one of them on the phone they say, “Call the subs.” That’s how it is.

The most valuable item found: a new Husky Brand 36-piece ratchet set (Home Depot price, $89.95.) Do you think I turned it into the sheriff’s lost and found? “Call the subs.” The saddest thing found: a decaying juvenile deer carcass with a broken hunting arrow protruding from its side. Hunting is legal in our canyon. That’s how it is.

Late last year I had six recruits. Neighborhood kids (elementary-school age), packed in the Honda Quad with its trailer, helped me on my day off from work. (It’s too dangerous to do this on Sundays anymore due to the 60 to 70 mph “Ninja” cafe motorcycles that race through Latigo. The kids and I were on the far right side of the road, halfway up on the asphalt berm on a straight-away when a new, large, V-8 sized, black Spoiled Utility Vehicle blared its horn (long burst), and the 30ish male driver with trendy sunglasses displayed the middle finger of his right hand in the “profound highway salute” because he had to slow down from 50 mph to the posted speed limit. His license plate frame read, “Malibu, A Way of Life.” Using her left hand, my 7-year-old daughter carefully bent down all but her middle finger of her right hand in imitation of that driver. Waving her gesturing hand in front of me, she proclaimed, “Look Dad, the man was so happy he did this!” I got such a chuckle out of that incident. The sad thing is that just recently, this same individual again expressed his road rage while passing us. In addition to his hand gesture, he shouted the “F” word at the kids through his open window. I know what you are thinking, readers. Yes, that was a hard one to explain! I guess the kids have to learn about the real world some day, but for now they still believe in Santa, the Easter Bunny and the Tooth Fairy.

My message to this driver is — as soon as your house makes enough money for you, move out with the same speed as you got here. These kids and I were born here and brought up here and we’ll be picking up after your type for years after you’re gone.

Recently, someone else in our canyon became a trash vigilante. We want to thank you, whoever you are. You don’t realize how many skunks, opossum, raccoon, coyotes, deer and other animals you have saved by reducing the sweet-smelling food wrappers that lure them into the roadways.

If this proposed “Latigo Ranch Retreat” (the yurt project) is allowed to be built up here, we’ll need a lot more help and many more speed limit signs. That’s how it is.

Jefferson Wagner

Millennium Cove

Is a time and place known only to Nancy and me.

Millennium Cove is a state of mind

And a special place where we

Watch the timeless turmoil

Of wind and wave and rock,

Hand in hand on the trembling sand,

Awed by the primal shock.

Millennium Cove

Has a pirates cave where the sea comes rushing in,

And slurps and sloshes and slides and slaps

With an irrepressible din.

Children again for an hour or two,

We laugh and climb and hide!

Nancy and me against the sea

And the tricks of a rascally tide.Millennium Cove

Is a secret cove without the summer crowds,

And the winter sky is a stormy sky,

Mottled with scudding clouds

Like celestial galleons they threaten,

And soon the sunlight fades,

As armadas clash, and the cadenced crash

Of the sea drums a cannonade.

Millennium Cove

Has great black rocks that never seem to smile

At comical pelicans solemnly

Flying by in single file.

Millennium Cove has a lonely gull

Who seems to want to be,

In this little cove, this special place,

A friend to Nancy and me.

Millennium Cove

Is timeless. I would not trivialize

These ancient shores and caverns

With calendars that surmise

To measure time in micro-spans …

“Millennia?” This primordial sea,

These hoary rocks, these Cambrian sands,

Evoke eternity!

Bill Dowey

Being a resident for 23 years, I have again learned of the kindness and helpfulness of my Malibu neighbors.

1999 has been a wonderful year! Not because of losing most of my eyesight, but because of the friendship extended to me by everyone. You see, I am now dependent upon public transportation, buses, hitchhiking, Dial-a-Ride and walking.

While waiting or walking, many of you have stopped and offered me rides to where I need to go. From strangers, we have become good friends. Your fellowship again proves that Malibu is a great place.

To all of you, and especially to my private “taxi” service friends, I thank you and wish you a prosperous Year 2000.

Walter Young

P.S. Please don’t honk. It makes me jump.

AYSO and values appear to be mutually exclusive concepts. Last month, my son Ryan, as well as 14 other under-12-year-old boys, was notified that he was selected to the AYSO All-Star soccer team. He was elated at the honor of such selection. Shortly thereafter, he was notified of the practice schedule and was solicited for his jersey size. Approximately one week later we were informed that certain parents had complained with respect to the absence of their children on the team (a prevalent occurrence with All-Star teams), and that, resultantly, a tryout was scheduled to be used as a determinant of the ultimate soccer All-Star team. Ryan, and I, attended the tryout, which was comprised of approximately 1-1/2 hours of timed sprints and dribbling tests, and approximately half an hour of scrimmaging conducted on two extremely small fields. Allegedly, as a result of the scores tabulated from such tryout of absolutely dubious value (a full weekend of tryouts would have been valuable), four kids were replaced on the team, of which one of them was Ryan, who was informed via a voice mail message. Curiously, not all of the replacements even participated in such tryouts conducted for a ludicrously short duration, by personnel who were absolutely ignorant as to the competency of the kids as evidenced over the course of the past soccer season. Furthermore, the All-Star coach and division director did not participate in the selection process, a supposed imperative per AYSO. AYSO set itself up for an untenable and misguided outcome by scheduling the aforementioned tryout and which would knowingly presage a reneging of commitments made to the original All-Star team selectees.

Thus far, the predominance of the discourse with respect to this matter has been directed towards the bickering amongst certain individuals with respect to the process and who said what to whom. There has been a conspicuous absence of discussion regarding the moral foundation that should underpin our children’s behavior and that of AYSO, as well as consideration of the perspectives and feelings of those children removed from the team. Unfortunately, the messages communicated to the children are that a) an adult’s word and commitment are of absolutely specious value and b) the proverbial squeaky wheel does in fact get the grease — that is, those who complain loudest and are most politically connected will prevail. As someone who deals extensively in the business world, my word and commitments must be, and are, truthful and irrevocable. I constantly reinforce these values in my children. Absent fraudulent representations, even if subsequent facts surface that would have adversely affected my investment decisions or commitments, a deal is a deal! Reprehensibly, AYSO’s actions evidence they believe otherwise.

With respect to the commentary directed towards Mike Doyle in the Malibu Surfside News Jan. 6 edition, I find it regrettable and unfounded. As someone whose son has been coached by Mike, I believe his ethics to be unquestionably righteous. Regarding comments about Mike being “inexperienced” and having selected an All-Star team that was “unbalanced and unfair,” that evidences personal malice towards Mike and ignorance with respect to Mike’s track record and the team he selected. Mike not only grew up with the sport of soccer but has coached numerous AYSO championship teams and All-Star teams. He would not have possessed an agenda to construct an “unbalanced and unfair” team — that’s unfathomable. In fact, quite to the contrary, due to his intimate knowledge of the kids selected, and those not selected, as well as soccer strategy, he sought to construct a “balanced team” with extraordinary chemistry (something that the AYSO “tryout” and ultimate selection process gave no value to whatsoever) and skills, consistent with his formation and substitution strategy for the team.

It is possible that certain kids possessed higher individual skill levels than particular kids selected on the initially selected team, possibly. Did that make it justifiable to unwind the initial team, implement a worthless tryout mechanism, incorporate a highly politicized decision making process and completely disregard commitments made to the kids on the original team, absolutely not. Sadly, AYSO opted for, and subsequently endorsed, a misguided process that sought to assuage certain parents with utter disregard for the feelings of certain kids, but most importantly, to the expense of appropriate values and messages being communicated to the most important interested parties, our children.

Kenneth Friedman

The following letter was sent to the Malibu City Council.

I have, very happily, been a member of the Malibu community for 27 years, and my husband and I look forward to spending the rest of our lives in our home here. What we love about Malibu is not merely the physical beauty, but also the sense of community. The word neighbor is an important one to us, and for that reason we respectfully request that the Malibu City Council remove item 4A from [its Jan. 10] meeting until a later unspecified date. We are aware of the tension and contention this application has incurred, and it is important to us that we have a chance to explore our neighbors’ concerns, to adjust to those which we can and to set straight some misperceptions about what kind of structure we would like to build.

We are aware that the Planning Commission, after investigating this matter exhaustively, has found our plans to be compliant with legal requirements and community character, and we respect that the members of the City Council would give requisite weight to these findings, but we prefer, nonetheless, to have a period in which we can meet with our neighbors, inform them, let them inform us and move ahead after communication has worked its wonders and achieved consensus.

Also, we are aware that there is some apprehension among the members of the Zumirez Drive neighborhood that we might eventually donate our home to a state organization, but I can assure all of the people of Point Dume in writing that this will never happen.

Thank you for your consideration of our request.

Barbra Streisand