Highwaymen Bring Western-Style Patriotism to Lakeside Concert

In case you were thinking of vacationing in Lakeside. Or: Civil liberties, Western-style.

The sellout crowd of 6,000-plus for last week’s Highwaymen concert at the Lakeside Rodeo Grounds was friendly but restrained.

That makes sense.

The Highwaymen--Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson--are pretty much establishment entertainment figures, notwithstanding their cultivation of the outlaw image. Half singers, half tax-sheltered corporation.

Besides, isn’t it said that Western music (and its cousin country -Western) has gone mainstream? Forget those hoary stereotypes about rowdy good old boys.

The Lakeside crowd was polite and happy, not all that different from a SummerPops concert at Hospitality Point on Mission Bay.

There was, however, one telling moment.

It came as Cash moved to one of his most popular renditions, a prose-poem about an old American Flag, tattered but proud.

“You’ve all got the right to burn the flag if you want to,” Cash told the mass.

Sly pause.

“But I’ve got the right to buy a gun and shoot you if you try to burn my flag.”

The crowd went ballistic. Standing, hooting, shouting, whistling, applauding until their hands were raw.

I thought you should know this. Just in case you make a wrong turn off Interstate 8 someday.

San Diego Goes Far East

East meets (and buys) West.

* A Shinto religious ceremony is planned today when the Emerald-Shapery Center in downtown San Diego is opened.

It’s to honor Tokyu Corp., the Japanese firm that put up the money.

A Buddhist ceremony was scheduled last week for a “groundblessing” for the Aviara resort project in Carlsbad.

It was nixed at the last moment when the San Diego partners discovered that their Japanese financier is a Protestant, not a Buddhist.

* An official “sister-city” delegation from Hondo, Japan, spent the weekend in Encinitas.

On the visitors’ must-see list of cultural sights: Solana Recyclers, Tijuana and the Encinitas Triathlon at Moonlight Beach.

* San Diego Mayor Maureen O’Connor, Economic Development Corp. President Dan Pegg and Chamber of Commerce official Mel Katz meet Tuesday in Tokyo with Sony Chairman Akio Morita.

Wanted: One Map of the World

People and places.

* Randy (Duke) Cunningham, jet pilot turned Republican challenger to Rep. Jim Bates (D-San Diego), wants to be the “education congressman.”

He’s also done radio ads endorsing President Bush’s use of troops to stand up to Saddam Hussein:

“After all, the current crisis in North Africa shows once again that strength is the only way to meet the challenges to peace.”

Dang, I can’t seem to find a map that shows Iraq, Kuwait or Saudia Arabia in North Africa. Must be that messed-up education system.

* Gloria McColl’s pension for six years on the San Diego City Council was approved Friday by the Retirement Board: $825.71 per month, effective immediately.

* Dr. Dan Kripke, Democratic candidate against Rep. Bill Lowery (R-San Diego), is proud but touchy about being director of the sleep disorder clinic at the Veterans Administration in La Jolla.

In challenging Lowery to a debate, Kripke promised not to call Lowery a crook if Lowery wouldn’t make fun of his research.

No such luck. Even in turning down the challenge, a Lowery aide got in a sleep dig:

“A debate like that would only put people to sleep. We’d just be creating more patients for Dr. Dan.”