Zoo Turns the Camera on Itself, Video Style

For all those tourists who can’t walk out the turnstile without first stopping at the gift shop to buy some post cards or color slides of the place, welcome to the VCR generation:

The San Diego Zoo is selling a 30-minute video of itself, called “It’s a Wild Life.” Post cards are cheaper; this cassette goes for $24.95.

But they’re selling like hot cakes, at least as 30-minute videos go, said Georgeanne Irvine, the zoo’s spokeswoman and executive producer of the video.

“It’s doing much better than we ever expected,” she said. “We’ve sold almost 1,000 in six weeks, which is exceptional. We anticipate selling 8,000 to 10,000 by the end of the year.”

The video was put together by an outfit called VideoTours, which is producing videos of other zoos throughout the country as well. (Perhaps there’s an upcoming category here for the Oscars--best zoo docu-hype under 45 minutes.)

Another video is now being prepared for the San Diego Wild Animal Park; both will be distributed nationwide, with the San Diego Zoological Society getting a little cut of the action.

“We had been getting requests from visitors for the past three or four years for a video souvenir. Our merchandising department has kept asking us to get one to them, so we finally made it a priority project,” Irvine said.

The video is a sort of day-in-the-life at the zoo, going from dawn to dusk and taking the viewer behind the scenes at the koala habitat, reptile house, zoo hospital, food warehouse, nursery and elephant barn.

“It was a good morale booster for everyone involved,” Irvine said.

Perhaps more interesting than who is in the video is who is not in it. Zoo ambassador Joan Embery, hostess of the syndicated “Animal Express” TV show and a regular on the “Tonight Show,” didn’t make so much as a cameo appearance. She was on vacation during the filming.

Sitting DIWKS

With all the recent media hype over DINKS (dual income, no kids) and OINKS (one income, no kids), the Escondido Boys’ and Girls’ Club is here to remind employers about DIWKS (dual incomes with kids) and the need for child care.

For years the organization, with the help of a federal grant, has been developing a plan to encourage employers to be more conscientious to help their workers find child care.

On Friday, the Escondido Boys’ and Girls’ Club is planning to salute the Escondido National Bank for kicking $1,000 into the program. The money will go toward purchasing everything from liability insurance to crayons for Escondido day-care homes. It also will pay for a special seminar for bank employees on how they can best balance home life and work, said Jane Goldschmidt, the project director.

The bank has not yet gone so far as to establish an on-site day care center, nor does it subsidize the cost of private day care for its employees. But that time may come, Goldschmidt said.

“The bank is a pacesetter company for helping to create good employee morale and productivity by involving itself in the issue,” she said. “A lot of companies don’t even want to touch the water when it comes to providing day care for their employees’ dependents; they feel their focus is to make widgets, and this doesn’t fall within the realm of employee benefits.

“Child care, though, will be the fringe benefit of the ‘90s.”

Sheet Music

As legal notices go, it was an eye-catcher: an advertisement in an East County newspaper giving official notice of a company called Friends of Ghosts.

Hmmm.

Turns out it’s a musical group with four college-age musicians based in Santee who have cut their first album, are hustling for gigs up and down the California coast and for air time on radio stations and who now are going to promote themselves with T-shirts and the like. Thus, the company.

Their style of music? “Psycho-pop,” said Jo Ann Marries, the mother of lead vocalist and guitarist Don Marries.

Psycho-pop? “It’s para-normal music,” Don Marries explained. Ah ha, that explains it.

How did Friends of Ghosts (or FOG) get its name? Because its music is inspired in part by the likes of Shakespeare, John Lennon and Edgar Allan Poe, said Jo Ann Marries, who describes herself as Mom FOG.

How would she describe the group? “Well, Lenny had his hair bleached, then he did it in a Mohawk, tipped purple. Don’s hair is short, but with a little tail; sometimes, he dyes it black. You never know quite how they’re going to look. They’re a little bit different every time you see them.”

For his part, Don Marries said his band is not only the best band in Santee, but it’s the only band actually residing in Santee. But, he said, they don’t perform in Santee. “That’s because,” he said, “there’s no scene in Santee.”

Lotto Tips? Bet on It

Finally, these closing items:

- The National Hot Rod Assn. is holding its annual convention through Thursday at the Hotel del Coronado.

But you don’t have to worry about a bunch of street rods burning silicone on the Silver Strand or laying rubber across the bridge.

It’s a collection of 90 or so race track owners and presidents sitting down for some business.

- A couple of Bonsall and Fallbrook businessmen, Donald Ober and Jim Sexton, are publishing “Lotto Forum,” a weekly publication offering tips on number selection, updates on the winning numbers and a variety of little feature stories about the Lotto up and down the state.

But you don’t have to subscribe to the magazine to tap their wisdom.

A press release pitching the magazine concludes: “To keep in touch with other Lotto players, the publishers hold informal Lotto Forums, around noon, most weekdays, at El Establo, bustling downtown Bonsall’s four-star Mexican restaurant.”