Petaluma Buzz: Wildlife tours are back, and so is filmmaker Ali Afshar

It’s Christmas (or at least a Christmas movie) in July: If you’ve spied trucks full of camera equipment around town, with what looks like “crafts services” (aka snacks and drinks) set up on tables here-and-there on random sidewalks and in the corners of parking lots, that’s because Petaluma’s prolific Ali Afshar is back at work making another movie in his adopted home town. Afshar, the producer and co-star of 2020’s popular Netflix holiday film “A California Christmas” - also the producer of 16 other locally filmed movies - is currently making another one, filming in various spots all over Petaluma. Though details are being kept to a minimum, Afshar acknowledges that this one is also set at Christmastime, with some of the same cast and crew as the surprise hit romantic-comedy. That would explain a recent call Afshar posted on local social media looking for a donkey to be featured in a Nativity scene. The scene, actually set in a big city soup kitchen where a Christmas performance is being given, was filmed last Friday at Hermann Sons Hall on Western Avenue. It featured a performance by Lauren Swickard, the star and screenwriter of “A California Christmas,” apparently playing the Virgin Mary (or someone playing Mary in the aforementioned Nativity scene. Over the weekend, there were also scenes shot at Keller Street CoWork, and on the streets of Petaluma, where plans were to shoot a traveling scene involving mounting a camera to the front of a pickup truck. Afshar, who is definitely keeping busy, says he’ll be making yet another Christmas movie later this year, and will shoot at least some of that one in Petaluma as well.

Petaluma Wildlife Museum returns to public tours: That victorious roar you hear is the sound of happy nature-science lovers finally able to return to one of Petaluma’s most unique institutions - the Petaluma Wildlife Museum, located on the campus of Petaluma High School. The only student-run wildlife museum of its kind in the U.S., the place has been quiet for 15 months, with just a skeleton crew on hand to care for the museum’s numerous “Animal ambassadors,” meaning live snakes, lizards, birds and chinchillas. Last weekend, even the many taxidermy animals seemed happy to see live people again, when the museum hosted its first public tours since closing to the public in early 2020.

“We are reopening to the public!” confirmed Jessi Redfield, a board member for the Petaluma Wildlife Museum and the journalism adviser at Petaluma High School. The first official tours took place on Saturday, July 3. And that’s just the beginning, she said.

“We will open for every Saturday the rest of July as well,” Redfield announced. “There will be guided tours from student docents at the top of each hour.”

The museum, at 201 Fair St., will be open on for four hours on Saturdays, from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. Staff is working on details to resume school district tours, but does not have a startup date yet.

Gio Benedetti jams with ‘Graceland’ musician: In early June, Petaluma artist and musician Gio Benedetti posted on his Facebook page, “Yesterday I got to hang and play with Bakithi Kumalo, bassist for Paul Simon, bassist on the ‘Graceland’ album, overall bass legend, and lovely human being.”

There was, of course, a photo provided as evidence.

In response to Benedetti’s post, there were (to say the least) many questions. Benedetti, a local artist, writer, and a founding member of Sonoma County music groups Toast Machine and The Brothers Comatose, explains that the picture was taken at Kala Ukulele, in Petaluma, where Bakithi was visiting.

“A huge thanks to my friends at Kala for inviting me into this amazing opportunity,” he said. Among the numerous things Benedetti learned from this impromptu jam session are that Bakithi is actually pronounced “Beegeetee” (with a hard g), that when Bakithi was 7 or 8, he built his own guitar out of an oil can and strips of bike tire tubes — and that he likes coffee.

“He likes coffee a lot,” says Benedetti, who admits to posting the photo on Facebook primarily so he’ll remember it every year when the platform delivers one of its annual reminders. Regarding Bakithi building his own instrument as a child, Benedetti explained that the musician’s whole DIY approach continued after that. “When he was playing in bands and doing sessions, in his teens, but didn't have his own bass to practice on, he cut a bass out of cardboard, drew the frets and strings on, and practiced the fingerings and songs on that.”

The experience of talking and playing with Bakithi was “pretty dreamy,” Benedetti said, admitting that several ways afterward he was still high on the whole thing.

“Sometimes meeting your heroes is just as amazing and rewarding and glorious as you hoped it would be,” he said.

Have an idea for a good Buzz item? Maybe a photo to go with it? Drop a line to Community Editor David Templeton at david.templeton@arguscourier.com.