Dynamo

As you read this, even if it's at 3 a.m., somewhere in this city a group of musicians is gathering to make music. And there's a good chance that one of those musicians is Dan Weinstein. "It seems like I'm playing with somebody four or five hours a day," said the trombonist-violinist who will appear Saturday at Jax in Glendale, looking in his appointment book.

Dean Collins is one of those rare human machines that make the rest of us wonder how they do it, how they find the time in the day, how they come up with their ideas . . . how they make all that money. Collins is a whiz kid (photographer-innovator-educator), and his life resembles 90 atomic power plants operating at one time. He works 14-hour days, six or seven days a week. Thirty percent of the year he's on the road lecturing--down from about 50% the last two years.

Billy Joel winced in pain as he fiddled with a formidable-looking brace on his recently sprained right ankle. "I may never waltz again," he joked. "Of course I didn't waltz befo r e I hurt this thing either." He chuckled briefly, then sneered at his ankle. In jeans and a T-shirt, Joel looked as if he was dressed for gardening rather than a sold-out concert at the Tucson Community Center.

For movie musical lovers in general and gay men of a certain age in particular, Judy Garland represents the alpha and omega of stardom. So it was with some trepidation that I knocked on the apartment door of Tracie Bennett, the English actress who has been uncannily transforming herself into Garland in "End of the Rainbow," Peter Quilter's musical drama about the final chapter of Garland's life. Garland died tragically in 1969 at age 47. Bennett, just over the half-century mark yet still vibrating with pixieish vitality, is the next best thing to a fantasy meeting with the icon.

One is a team of superstars led by David Beckham and Landon Donovan, probably the closest thing soccer has to household names in this country. The other is a team of unsung grinders, probably the closest thing soccer has to the Memphis Grizzlies. The Galaxy is sleek but temperamental, like an expensive sports car. The Houston Dynamo is dull but dependable, like a well-worn pick-up truck. Yet for all their differences, the two teams who will meet in Saturday's MLS Cup final at the Home Depot Center also have a lot in common - starting with ownership.

A last-minute goal by Oleg Kuznetsov gave Dynamo Kiev of the Soviet Union a 1-1 tie with Bordeaux of France in the Pacific Cup soccer championship Sunday at the Coliseum. Both teams finished with a 1-0-1 record, but Dynamo Kiev was awarded the championship over Bordeaux because it scored more goals in its two games. Dynamo Kiev defeated West German League leader FC Cologne, 3-0, and Bordeaux defeated Mexican champion Guadalajara, 2-1, Friday night.

Landon Donovan hasn't decided yet whether the Major League Soccer Cup final on Saturday will be his last game with the Galaxy. But if that proves to be the case, he picked up a nice parting gift on his way out the door while giving the team and a record Home Depot Center crowd of 30,510 something by which to remember him. Because it was Donovan's penalty-kick goal in the 65th minute that snapped a tie and sent the Galaxy on the way to its second consecutive...

Offbeat but not off the beaten path, Dynamo Hum plays a dissonant, abstract, but not completely pop-averse form of arty alterna-rock rooted firmly in the mid-'80s innovations of Sonic Youth and Throwing Muses. The rhythms are spare, spiny, compulsive--a Muses trademark. The song structures are episodic, alternating between unsettling soft passages and driving alarm. Along the way, Dynamo Hum usually manages a vocal hook on which to hang a song.

Right now Noelle Parker only gets stares. "Lots of looks, but not actual recognition," says the good-humored newest addition to NBC's "Sisters." Or, sometimes people tell her she looks like Alyssa Milano ("Who's the Boss"), who Parker, 26, acknowledges she resembles. Both Parker and Milano, along with Drew Barrymore, starred in the 1992 network wars of movies based on Amy Fisher, the "Long Island Lolita." Parker starred in NBC's "Amy Fisher: My Story."

David Beckham wasn't there. The Galaxy was without its star midfielder Wednesday night for the third time this season. He was in (old) England. He'll rejoin his teammates in New England this weekend when they face the Revolution. There's a historical pun in there somewhere. But while Beckham stayed in his native land, where Tuesday he played a testimonial match with former teammate Gary Neville, the Galaxy posted a 1-0 win against the Houston Dynamo before 14,458 at the Home Depot Center in Carson.