Reminder: If you can't make it out to Blue Lake for the kick-off of the Mad River Festival tonight, you can catch some of the opening events over at the mothership: northcoastjournal.com . Starting at 7:30 p.m., actor Tim Robbins and his Actors' Gang troupe will be awarded the "Prize of Hope" -- an event, we understand, that will involve some speechifying. Then, shortly afterwards, the Joyce Hough Band will rock the party. Both events will be piped into your living room live, courtesy Dell'Arte, StreamGuys and the North Coast Journal .

If you'd like, you can click on over to the North Coast Journal now and watch some entertaining pre-event video, including a longer documentary-style piece involving Dell'Arte and some Oregon hippies. I may be paranoid (or swollen-headed), but I suspect I'm the inspiration for the deranged sea captain in the first clip. I called Dell'Arte "world-class" in a column a year or so ago, and the Blue Lakers quickly ganked the quote for their promotional material.

And it's true.