News

By Marty Treinen and Dr. D. Wesley Spencer
Universal Creative Intelligence LLC

California has always been more than a place. It has been an idea.

It is where people come to reinvent themselves. It is where industries are born, where artists and scientists imagine what does not yet exist, and where technology, agriculture, entertainment, design, education, and entrepreneurship meet in ways that change the world.

But California now faces a defining question.

In the age of artificial intelligence, what must higher education become?

And just as important: who should higher education be for?

The answer can no longer be limited to traditional students, full-time degree seekers, or those who can afford the rising cost of opportunity. If California is going to lead the future, its colleges and universities must help open the door to everyone willing to develop themselves, improve their lives, and serve their communities.

That includes high school students preparing for adulthood, college students seeking direction, working adults changing careers, entrepreneurs building something real, retirees and seniors with experience to contribute, the unemployed and underemployed, people with disabilities, veterans, immigrants, minorities, underserved communities, and every person who has never been offered a real pathway to leadership.

That is the promise of Universal Leadership Education.

AI Is Changing the Value of Education

AI is already changing how students learn, how employers evaluate talent, how colleges measure academic work, and how families judge the value of a degree. Students can now use AI to write, summarize, organize, calculate, research, code, design, and produce content at speeds that were unimaginable only a few years ago.

That is not automatically a bad thing. AI can be a powerful tool. But a tool is not a leader.

A tool does not create purpose. It does not build character. It does not develop emotional maturity. It does not teach people how to collaborate, improve themselves over time, serve a community, or lead when circumstances become uncertain.

That is the missing piece.

California’s colleges and universities do not need to fear AI. They need to finish the educational job that AI cannot complete.

They need to develop Universal Leaders.

The old promise of higher education was simple: earn a degree, get a better future. That promise is no longer enough. Students and families are asking harder questions. What does this degree actually provide? Will it lead to meaningful work? Will it prepare students for a changing economy? Will it help them adapt when industries change? Will it give them the human abilities that employers need and communities depend on?

AI has made these questions more urgent.

The question is not whether students should use AI. They will. The question is whether they will have the human intelligence, discipline, judgment, creativity, collaboration, emotional maturity, and sense of purpose to use AI wisely.

That is where Universal Leadership Education enters the conversation.

What Universities Still Do Best

In the rush toward edtech, AI platforms, online tools, and automated learning systems, we should not forget what universities and colleges still do better than technology: they bring people together.

For nearly 1,000 years in the Western university tradition, and for even longer across the broader history of higher learning, education has been built on something deeply human.

Teacher to student.
Student to teacher.
Student to student.
People to people.

That is one of the oldest and most effective educational systems humanity has ever created.

AI can deliver information. Edtech can organize content. Software can track progress. But no platform can replace the human moment when a teacher sees a student beginning to understand, when a student asks a question that changes the direction of a room, or when classmates challenge one another, support one another, and learn how to think together.

That is the lasting strength of the college and university system.

Universities do not need to become less human in response to AI. They need to become more human, more intentional, and more focused on what AI cannot do.

That is why Universal Leadership Education belongs in partnership with colleges and universities. ULE is not an edtech replacement for higher education. It is a human-development system that strengthens what colleges have always done best: bring people together to learn, think, grow, challenge themselves, and become more capable than they were before.

In the age of AI, that human advantage matters more, not less.

What Universal Leadership Education Provides

Universal Leadership Education, or ULE, is built on Universal Creative Intelligence: human intelligence with an AI assist.

That phrase matters.

AI should assist human intelligence. It should not replace it. It should not become the center of human development. It should serve the person, the team, the organization, and the community.

ULE creates a complete circle: human intelligence and artificial intelligence working together, with human purpose leading the way.

ULE teaches the foundational capabilities every student, worker, entrepreneur, educator, artist, public servant, and business leader needs:

Learning.
Creativity.
True Collaboration.
Emotional Mastery.
Mission Focus.
Continuous Improvement.
Service to Others.

These are not soft extras. They are the hard center of sustainable success.

A person may earn a degree and still struggle to communicate. A person may master technical knowledge and still fail in collaboration. A person may understand AI tools and still lack focus, emotional control, ethical judgment, or the ability to lead a team through pressure.

ULE addresses that gap.

It develops individuals who can lead themselves first, and then contribute more effectively to organizations, businesses, workforces, communities, and human endeavors of every kind.

Universal Means Everyone

If Universal Leadership Education is going to meet the moment, it must be available to everyone.

Not only to traditional college students.
Not only to those already accepted into degree programs.
Not only to those who can afford full tuition.
Not only to those already identified as “future leaders.”

Universal means universal.

For too long, leadership development has been reserved for the few. It has often been offered to those already near power, already inside institutions, already chosen by someone else.

ULE is built on a different promise:

Everyone is equal. Everyone plays. Anyone can become a Universal Leader. Everyone benefits. Everyone wins.

That is why colleges and universities must open the door wider. They should not treat leadership education as an elite benefit. They should treat it as a public responsibility and a statewide opportunity.

ULE has special importance for people and communities historically left outside traditional leadership pathways: minorities, underserved communities, first-generation students, working-class families, rural communities, LGBTQ+ individuals, immigrants, people with disabilities, older adults, and anyone who has been told, directly or indirectly, that leadership was not meant for them.

ULE says something different.

Leadership is not a title. It is not a social class. It is not inherited access. It is not permission granted by the already powerful.

Leadership can be learned. Leadership can be developed. Leadership can be practiced. Leadership can be accredited. Leadership can be improved over a lifetime.

That levels the playing field.

A New Front Door Into Higher Education

Universal Leadership Education also gives colleges and universities a powerful way to expand who they serve.

Higher education cannot be limited only to traditional degree-seeking students. In the age of AI, economic uncertainty, workforce disruption, and widening opportunity gaps, colleges and universities must become broader access points for human development across the entire community.

That means opening the door to high school students preparing for adulthood, working adults seeking advancement, unemployed and underemployed individuals looking for a new pathway, parents, veterans, immigrants, seniors, people with disabilities, minorities, returning learners, entrepreneurs, nonprofit workers, and community members who may never have believed college was meant for them.

ULE gives colleges a way to say something new and necessary:

We are not only here for people pursuing degrees. We are here for every person in the community who wants to develop themselves, improve their future, and become a Universal Leader.

That changes the role of the college.

The college becomes more than a place where students earn credits. It becomes a community leadership-development center. It becomes a place where people of different ages, backgrounds, cultures, and economic circumstances can begin building the human capabilities needed to participate more fully in the future.

This does not weaken degree programs. It strengthens them.

Many individuals who enter through a Universal Leadership Education pathway may later recognize that they need additional education to advance their goals. A person who completes ULE may decide they need business courses, communication courses, entrepreneurship education, nonprofit management, hospitality education, healthcare administration, technology support, design, project management, or another certificate or degree pathway.

In that way, ULE can become a new front door into higher education.

It can build confidence in people who have been disconnected from college. It can create trust between communities and institutions. It can help colleges reach people they have never reached before. It can also create a new revenue stream by bringing new learners into the system—learners who may begin with Universal Leadership accreditation and then continue into additional classes, certificates, degrees, or professional-development opportunities.

For those who cannot afford access, colleges can work with nonprofits, employers, workforce programs, government agencies, foundations, and philanthropic partners to help support participation. That is how higher education becomes both more inclusive and more sustainable.

ULE does not ask colleges to abandon their mission.

It helps them expand it.

Success Is a Continuum

One of the greatest mistakes in modern education is the belief that success is a finish line.

Graduate.
Get the degree.
Get the job.
You are done.

But life does not work that way. Work does not work that way. Leadership does not work that way. Communities do not work that way.

Success is a continuum. It is not a destination.

That is why continuous improvement must be built into the system.

A person should not stop developing when they graduate. A Universal Leader should continue to grow, adapt, refine, serve, collaborate, and advance throughout life. That is why ULE accreditation matters. It creates a pathway of ongoing quality, value, ability, career focus, personal development, and professional advancement.

This gives colleges and universities something they do not currently have: a way to stay connected to the continuing success of their students after they leave campus.

The degree becomes the beginning, not the end.

ULE helps make education a lifelong relationship between the learner, the institution, the workforce, and the community.

Why California Should Move First

California is uniquely positioned to lead.

California already has the educational infrastructure. It has public universities, private colleges, community colleges, workforce programs, innovation hubs, arts institutions, business networks, technology companies, agricultural regions, hospitality industries, and diverse communities with enormous human potential.

Now it needs the next layer.

Universal Leadership Education can serve as that layer by connecting higher education to workforce development, business development, leadership development, entrepreneurship, and community advancement.

That matters deeply here in the Coachella Valley and throughout Riverside County.

Our region needs more than jobs. It needs people prepared to create jobs. It needs people prepared to build businesses. It needs people prepared to lead nonprofits, cities, schools, arts organizations, healthcare systems, hospitality companies, trade organizations, and emerging industries. It needs people who can work across cultures, generations, languages, and economic backgrounds.

ULE is not limited to one major, one industry, or one profession. That is its strength.

It can support the art student, the business student, the healthcare student, the engineering student, the hospitality student, the teacher, the entrepreneur, the returning adult learner, and the first-generation college student.

It can help students understand not only what they are learning, but who they are becoming.

The Advantage for Colleges, Students, and Communities

For colleges and universities, ULE offers a practical strategic advantage.

It helps answer the question every institution must now answer:

Why should students choose us?

The answer cannot simply be tradition. It cannot simply be beautiful buildings, old reputations, or lists of degree programs. Students and families are becoming more careful. Employers are becoming more demanding. AI is changing the meaning of basic competence.

Colleges need to offer something more.

By adopting ULE, either within their own systems or in partnership with Universal Creative Intelligence LLC, California colleges can add a new promise to their programs:

Our graduates are not only educated.
They are developed.
They are prepared to lead.
They are prepared to improve continuously.
They are prepared to use AI without becoming dependent on it.
They are prepared to serve organizations and communities with purpose.

That is a message that can attract students, reassure parents, inspire alumni, interest employers, and strengthen donor confidence.

For students, ULE provides what many already know they need but have never been formally taught: how to lead themselves, stay focused, collaborate with people who think differently, handle pressure, use AI without losing their own voice, and build a life and career that serve both themselves and the community around them.

For communities, ULE provides something equally important: a common leadership language.

Communities do not grow because buildings appear. They grow because people develop the ability to imagine, organize, build, collaborate, lead, and improve.

Economic development depends on human development. Workforce development depends on human development. Business development depends on human development. Leadership development depends on human development.

This is the point too often missed.

We cannot create thriving communities if we do not develop the people who must create, manage, lead, and sustain them.

A Call to California Higher Education

AI is not going away.

The question is whether we will allow AI to define the future of education, or whether we will use AI as a tool while placing human development back at the center.

California can lead that shift.

Colleges and universities can protect the value of their degrees by adding what AI cannot provide. They can offer students more than information. They can offer formation. They can help students become Universal Leaders who continue improving throughout their personal and professional lives.

This is not about replacing what colleges already do.

It is about completing it.

It is about adding the missing layer: the human-capability system that helps students turn education into leadership, leadership into opportunity, and opportunity into community advancement.

California can be first.

The Coachella Valley can help lead.

But only if we understand what is truly at stake.

This is not simply about adding another class. It is about opening the door to a new kind of educational access—one that reaches traditional students, working adults, underserved communities, minorities, seniors, entrepreneurs, and every person who has the desire to grow but has never been given a real leadership pathway.

Universal Leadership Education gives colleges and universities a way to do that.

It gives students added value. It gives graduates a continuing advantage. It gives communities stronger people. It gives employers better leaders. It gives colleges and universities a new access pathway, new enrollment opportunities, and a new reason for the community to see higher education as belonging to everyone.

And most importantly, it gives people who have never been invited into leadership a clear and credible pathway to become Universal Leaders.

The future will not belong to those who merely use AI.

It will belong to those who develop the human intelligence, creative discipline, emotional maturity, collaborative ability, mission focus, and service-centered leadership to use AI wisely.

That is what Universal Leadership Education provides.

Universal Leadership Education: Choose to Participate.

About the Authors

Marty Treinen and Dr. D. Wesley Spencer are the co-developers of Universal Creative Intelligence and Universal Leadership Education. Together, they bring decades of experience across the arts, education, communication, business, creativity, leadership, and large-scale international project environments, including work connected to multi-billion-dollar resorts, casinos, hospitality, design, fabrication, and construction-related projects in the United States and Asia. Spencer teaches communication at the College of the Desert. He holds a Ph.D. in theater and communication and has spent more than 25 years as a college educator, director, actor, writer, and organizational leader.

They are also the authors of “Universal Creative Intelligence: How the Arts and Sciences Propel Human Advancement”. From that foundation, they developed Universal Leadership Education, based on Universal Creative Intelligence with an AI assist. 

2026© Marty Treinen & Wesley Spencer  All Rights Reserved       

Contact Marty Treinen service.to.others.cci@gmail.com 

Program born from tragedy aims to prevent firearm-related deaths when home situations become volatile

Palm Springs, CA

The Palm Springs Police Department is set to launch Pierce’s Pledge Gun Safety Storage Program, offering residents a free, voluntary option to temporarily surrender firearms for secure storage at the Department for up to one year at no cost.

The program arrives in Palm Springs through a partnership with Lesley Hu and Pierce’s Pledge, the nonprofit organization Hu founded after her 9-year-old son, Pierce, was killed by his father during a family law dispute in San Francisco. The initiative is designed to prevent similar tragedies by giving community members a safe and practical option to remove firearms from the home when circumstances change.

“We created Pierce’s Pledge to prevent the kind of tragedy our family endured,” said Hu. “Our partnership with law enforcement sends a powerful message that protecting children and families during volatile circumstances is a shared responsibility. Responsible gun ownership includes knowing when having the gun out of the house is safer than having it in.”

The Palm Springs program mirrors the model already championed by the San Francisco Police Department, providing residents with a resource during moments when a firearm’s presence in the home may pose a risk — whether due to a mental health concern, a domestic dispute, or another change in living situation.

“The Palm Springs Police Department is proud to work with Lesley Hu and Pierce’s Pledge to bring this meaningful program to our community,” said Palm Springs Deputy Chief Kyle Stjerne. “Providing a secure option for voluntary firearm storage can help prevent tragedy and give families an important resource when circumstances at home change.”

The announcement coincides with the 12th annual National Gun Violence Awareness Day on June 5, 2026, and Wear Orange Weekend on June 6 and 7 — a national observance dedicated to raising awareness about gun violence and honoring its victims.

Under the program, surrendered firearms will be securely maintained by the Palm Springs Police Department for up to one year. Before that deadline, owners will be contacted with instructions on how to reclaim their firearm if they remain legally eligible to do so. Owners who choose not to reclaim their firearm may also arrange to sell or transfer it to a federally licensed firearms dealer, provided the firearm is legal to own and the individual has the legal right to transfer it.

The Police Department will formally present the program to the Palm Springs City Council at its meeting on Tuesday, June 10, 2026. Following the presentation, Hu and Deputy Chief Stjerne will be available to speak with members of the media.

Residents seeking more information about the Pierce’s Pledge Gun Safety Storage Program are encouraged to contact the Palm Springs Police Department.

Palm Springs, CA

California’s June 2 primary delivered competitive results up and down the ballot, with Coachella Valley voters watching three consequential races still being sorted out as ballot counting continues across the state.

Governor’s race: Still too close to call

With 56% of the votes counted statewide, Republican Steve Hilton holds 28% and Democrat Xavier Becerra 26%, with billionaire Tom Steyer in third place at 20% and Republican Chad Bianco at 11%. The race remains uncalled, and in close contests it could take days or even weeks for a winner to be declared — mail-in ballots postmarked by election day can arrive as late as June 9, and the Secretary of State has until July 10 to certify results.

Matt Mahan and Antonio Villaraigosa dropped out as early results came in on election night, and Katie Porter conceded as more ballots were counted. Hilton, a Trump-endorsed former Fox News host who has vowed to cut income taxes, slash environmental regulations, and boost oil drilling, consolidated support from much of the state’s conservative base.

Becerra’s likely finish in the top two caps a swift ascent after polling so low just three months ago that he wasn’t invited to a candidate debate.

Trump posted on Truth Social congratulating Hilton, writing: “If Californians are smart, which I know they are, they will put Steve into the Governor’s Mansion.” Trump also claimed without evidence that Democrats were attempting to manipulate the count through mail-in ballots — assertions election officials have not substantiated.

Under California’s top-two primary system, Hilton and Becerra appear headed to a November 3 general election showdown, barring a dramatic shift in the remaining ballots. The outcome will have direct implications for the Coachella Valley on issues including housing, water policy, and desert climate initiatives.

Congressional District 48: Palm Springs in a new and competitive seat

Following redistricting under Proposition 50, California’s 48th Congressional District now includes Palm Springs — placing the city in a race that national Democrats have targeted as one of their best opportunities to flip a House seat and potentially shift control of Congress.

Incumbent Rep. Darrell Issa announced in March he would not seek re-election, opening the seat for the first time in years. According to the Associated Press, San Diego County Supervisor Jim Desmond (R) and San Diego City Councilmember Marni von Wilpert (D) advanced to the November ballot.

Von Wilpert is a former civil prosecutor focused on the cost of living, ICE enforcement, LGBTQ rights, and reproductive freedom. Desmond is a Navy veteran who has campaigned on housing costs and economic relief for working families. Desmond entered the race with a significant financial advantage, having raised $1.9 million compared to von Wilpert’s $1.26 million heading into primary day.

The November contest between Desmond and von Wilpert is expected to draw heavy outside spending from both parties.

Assembly District 47: Wallis and Namvar advance

Closer to home, incumbent Republican Assemblymember Greg Wallis led the AD-47 primary with approximately 50% of the vote, with Democrat Leila Namvar in second place at around 29.5% and software engineer Jason Byors third at 21%.

District 47 covers Yucaipa, Banning, Palm Springs, Palm Desert, Yucca Valley, Desert Hot Springs, and surrounding communities. Wallis and Namvar will face off in November. Namvar is a union advocate and public arts analyst for the city of Indio who made affordability the centerpiece of her campaign. Wallis raised $319,000 since January compared to Namvar’s $131,000.

The rematch sets up a competitive general election in a district that has been closely contested in every cycle since it was redrawn in 2022.

What comes next

All three races head to the November 3 general election. Ballot counting in California continues through June 9 for mail-in ballots, with official certification due by July 10. PS Tribune will continue tracking results as they are finalized.

Sources: Associated Press, California Secretary of State, ABC7, CalMatters, Desert Sun, Desert Trumpet. Results are partial and subject to change.

Palm Springs, CA

The Palm Springs International ShortFest has announced its full lineup for the 32nd annual festival, set to run June 23–29, 2026 at the Festival Theaters in Palm Springs, California.

This year’s edition will screen 329 films across 50 curated programs, representing 71 countries and territories. The selection includes 52 World Premieres, 21 International Premieres, 40 North American Premieres, 30 U.S. Premieres, and 79 California Premieres. The lineup was drawn from a record-breaking pool of more than 7,000 submissions from 145 countries and territories. Tickets go on sale June 4 at psfilmfest.org.

The festival features a number of short films with notable talent both in front of and behind the camera. Highlights include Chop Cheese, directed by Sophia Meloni and starring Christopher Meloni and Michael Gandolfini; Going Home starring Patton Oswalt; General Admission starring Nina Dobrev; Homebodies starring Sam Richardson and Martha Kelly; and Kiloran Bay starring Alan Cumming, among dozens of others.

Artistic Director Lili Rodriguez described the lineup as “funny, strange, emotional, political, chaotic, gorgeous,” adding that discovering emerging filmmakers is one of the festival’s greatest strengths.

Beyond screenings, ShortFest continues its community outreach through two programs aimed at the next generation. The Curator Fellowship gives Coachella Valley young adults ages 18–25 hands-on experience in film curation alongside the programming team, culminating in the locally curated “Valley Visions” program screening June 23. The Filmmaker Bootcamp, returning June 25, connects local high school students directly with industry professionals.

The festival also carries significant awards weight. With more than 100 alumni films earning Academy Award nominations over the years, ShortFest offers five Oscar-qualifying award categories alongside student, special jury, and audience awards, with cash prizes totaling $30,000. Juried winners will be announced June 28, with the Best of the Fest closing program on June 29. Bennett Awards is the official awards sponsor.

Reviewed By Wesley Spencer and Marty Treinen 5-22-2026

Opening: What I Thought I Was Walking Into

When I first heard the title Silver Foxes, I thought I had a pretty good idea of what I was walking into. I imagined a group of gray-haired, slightly formal, beyond-senior divas gathering for book club, cocktails, and maybe a documentary screening about the years when they were almost famous, nearly famous, or still convinced they should have been famous.

And honestly, that version might be its own animal — and probably a very funny one.

But that is not this play.

Not this time.

Not this place.

(Spoiler Alert)

Silver Foxes, now playing at Revolution Stage Company in Palm Springs, is a comedy, yes. It knows how to make a room laugh. It knows how to land a line, roll an eye, turn a pause into a punchline, and let a character walk into the room already carrying a whole history of fabulous trouble. But the longer the play goes on, the clearer it becomes that the laughter is only the front door. Behind it is memory. Behind that is survival. And behind that is the long, complicated, beautiful, painful history of a community that has learned how to keep going by turning grief into wit, exclusion into chosen family, and survival into style.

Palm Springs Is Not Just the Setting

What I loved immediately about Silver Foxes is that it takes place in the very community where it is being performed. Palm Springs is not just the setting. It is part of the story’s bloodstream.

There is something beautifully appropriate about that, especially because my husband and I are part of this very community. So when the play begins, it does not feel like we are being invited into some distant fictional world. It feels like someone opened a door to a room we already know.

Palm Springs matters here. The city is not just a sunny postcard, a mid-century house, a mountain view, or a place where someone once came to reinvent themselves. It is a place where many gay men have come to live out some of the best parts of their lives. It is a place where, as I would put it, we finally get to play ball.

Why?

Because for too long, many of us were not allowed to play with everyone else. We were excluded, limited, silenced, hidden, and told in a hundred different ways where we did not belong.

I do not think I have to explain that to many people in this audience. Palm Springs is a community filled with people who have lived those stories. Many came here not only for sunshine, architecture, restaurants, and mountain views, but for peace of mind. For survival. For sanity. For the chance to bury parts of the past and then build something better on top of it.

That is why this play feels so right here. Silver Foxes is a play written by us, for us, in a place where many of us have chosen to live without apology and, as much as possible, without interference. That does not mean the outside world disappears. It does not. But here, there is at least a shared understanding that our lives, our histories, our humor, our grief, and our chosen families are not side stories.

They are the story.

The Premise: Comedy With a Spine

Written by James Berg and Stan Zimmerman, and directed by Zimmerman, Silver Foxes centers on older gay men in Palm Springs who form, protect, and redefine chosen families. On the surface, it has the ingredients of a classic contemporary comedy: old friends, former lovers, a mid-century house, sharp dialogue, generational misunderstandings, neighbors with opinions, a younger man discovering what he does not yet know, and enough theatrical personalities to fill the room before anyone even sits down.

But underneath the comedy is a much stronger question: who takes care of us when the world no longer knows what to do with us?

That is the question that gives the play its spine. This is not just a comedy about older gay men making jokes. It is a comedy about aging, friendship, dignity, desire, loneliness, memory, history, and the people who become family because they were there when no one else was.

That is not a small thing. For many LGBTQ+ elders, aging is not only about health, money, housing, or loneliness. It can also mean facing institutions and systems that still do not understand, honor, or protect the truth of their lives. It can mean going back into closets they fought for decades to escape. It can mean needing friends to step in when systems fail.

In that sense, Silver Foxes is very funny, but it is not frivolous.

Then I Started Laughing

And then I started laughing.

I mean really laughing.

I laughed so hard I can safely say I laughed my ass off — which, at this point in life, is easier to say because I am not entirely sure I still have one.

But underneath the laughter was something I did not expect. Every one of these characters felt like someone I had known. Not types. Not stereotypes. People. Real people. People I had met in theaters, living rooms, bars, parties, rehearsals, fundraisers, and all the strange, wonderful places where creative and queer lives intersect.

That was especially true of Jon Morehouse’s Cecil. His performance was so specific, so alive, and so familiar to me that after the show I actually asked the playwrights whether the character had been modeled after a friend of mine. I was convinced the three of them must have crossed paths somewhere in Hollywood or Los Angeles over the years. Every part of Cecil felt like that person incarnate. The rhythm, the wit, the posture, the theatrical survival instinct — it was all there.

So, thinking I was being clever, I asked point blank if they knew my friend.

They did not.

Cecil was completely fabricated.

And that is when I understood how deeply this play had affected me. I was not simply watching characters on a stage. I was reconnecting with people I had known throughout my life. People who made me laugh. People who exhausted me. People who filled rooms with impossible stories and then somehow made them believable. People who survived by being funny, outrageous, stylish, wounded, generous, difficult, and unforgettable.

Many of them are gone now.

But for a couple of hours, Silver Foxes brought them back into the room.

That is one of the quiet miracles of theater. When it works, it does not only show us people.

It returns people to us.

Meeting the Writers and the Cast

After the performance, we had the opportunity to meet both writers of Silver Foxes, including writer-director Stan Zimmerman. That is not always typical, but because this production marks the West Coast premiere of the play, their presence felt especially meaningful.

Like most opening-night or post-show gatherings, the conversations were brief, warm, and congratulatory. There is usually only enough time to meet, greet, thank people, and move on. But even in those few moments, there was enough time to let the writers, cast, and creative team know that their work was appreciated — not only for the laughs they delivered, but for the craft, expertise, and care they brought to the stage.

That matters to me.

For me, the gold standard for any performance — whether it is film, television, concert work, theater, or any live performance where artists make a direct connection with an audience — is very simple:

Did they bring it?

Were they present?

Were they connected?

Were they convincing?

Did they fully inhabit the character, the moment, and the world of the piece?

In Silver Foxes, the answer was yes.

The actors did not simply say the lines. They brought these characters into full view, giving the audience a chance to understand them, laugh with them, and recognize the humanity underneath the comedy.

The Cast: Characters in Full View

Patrick Bristow, as Benny, gives the play one of its emotional anchors. Benny is funny, sharp, direct, wounded, and still very much alive to the world around him. Bristow understands that comedy does not have to erase pain. In fact, with a character like Benny, the comedy lands because the pain is there. It has survived, not been removed.

Michael Corbett, as Chuck, brings another essential layer to the story. Chuck is a man who has lived through concealment, compromise, and the cost of trying to survive inside systems that did not make room for him. Corbett lets us see both the humor and the guardedness in Chuck. He gives us a man who can be funny because he has had to be strong, and strong because he has had no other choice.

Jon Morehouse, as Cecil, is unforgettable. Cecil could easily become only a comic creation — flamboyant, theatrical, outrageous, and larger than life. But Morehouse gives him something more valuable than that. He gives him specificity. Cecil feels lived in. He feels like someone with a past, a rhythm, a public self, a private self, and a way of moving through the world that was built from survival, style, and necessity. That is why he felt so real to me. That is why I found myself wondering whether the playwrights had borrowed him from life.

Zachary Feuling, as Twink, brings the generational contrast the play needs. He is not only there to be young, pretty, and unaware of the histories swirling around him. He is there to show us what happens when one generation has lived through things the next generation was never properly taught. Twink is funny because he does not always understand the room he is in. But he is also important because he represents the future, still learning how to listen to the past.

Melanie Blue, listed simply as Woman, deserves special mention because she does not play only one presence in the play. She moves through multiple roles — friends, pushy neighbors, and even a sugar daddy from one of our many colorful subcultures. There is no humor lost in her performance. She knows exactly how far to push each character, and when the moment calls for it, she goes just as wonderfully over the top as the rest of the cast. In a play already full of theatrical personalities, Blue adds another layer of comic energy and sharp character work.

Together, the cast gives the play its life. They understand the rhythm of the comedy, but more importantly, they understand that the jokes are not floating on top of the story. The jokes come from the story. They come from the lives these people have lived.

Benny, Cecil, and the History No One Taught

What came up for me later, and what stayed with me after the laughter, was the moment when Patrick Bristow’s Benny says plainly that Cecil saved his life.

That line changes the temperature of the room.

Until then, we are laughing, recognizing people we know, and enjoying the rhythm of these older gay men who have survived long enough to become funny about things that were never funny when they were happening. But then Benny opens a door into another part of the story — the years when AIDS was killing friends, lovers, neighbors, artists, strangers, and entire circles of people across our community and around the world.

At that moment, Benny is not simply remembering illness. He is remembering survival.

He is remembering what it meant to try experimental drugs, to hold on while science, government, medicine, and public compassion were all moving too slowly for the people who were dying in real time. He is remembering the years when people in our community became their own advocates, caretakers, researchers, fundraisers, nurses, witnesses, and family because too many institutions responded too late and too slowly.

And he is giving Twink a history lesson that too many schools never taught.

That is one of the most important things Silver Foxes does. It lets one generation speak directly to another, not as a lecture, but as a lived memory.

This matters because there are histories that never make it into the official textbook in a way that feels human. There are histories that get reduced to timelines, policy changes, medical breakthroughs, or cultural footnotes. But that is not how people lived them. People lived in one hospital room at a time, one phone call at a time, one memorial at a time, one experimental treatment at a time, one friend at a time.

Benny’s line about Cecil saving his life is not sentimental. It is not decorative. It is a doorway into everything this community had to become for itself.

Chuck and the Cost of Silence

The same thing happens when Michael Corbett’s Chuck talks about his experience in the military.

He had been married to a woman. He had a child. He had built one version of a life while hiding another version of himself. Then came the damage of a system that told gay service members they could serve their country only if they denied the truth of who they were.

Whether under the official shadow of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell or the older, harsher military policies that came before it, the result was the same: silence, shame, secrecy, punishment, and lives split in two.

That is why these scenes matter.

They are not heavy-handed. They do not stop the play. They deepen it.

They remind us that comedy in queer life has often carried history inside it. Sometimes the joke is the door. Behind it are the things people survived, the names they do not always say out loud, and the memories they keep buried because there was never a safe place to put them.

We never forget these things. Sometimes we bury them. Sometimes we keep them hidden from family, from friends, and even from ourselves. Sometimes we put them away because we have to keep moving. But then a line in a play opens the drawer, and there it is again.

Not gone.

Just waiting.

Twink, the Missing Man from Chicago, and the Future

And then there is Twink, with the unseen man from Chicago who does not come to Palm Springs for Cecil’s birthday.

That relationship, at least to Twink, is a romance made in heaven. But the older men can see what he cannot yet see. They recognize the avoidance. They recognize the excuses. They recognize the familiar ache of someone waiting for a person who may never fully show up.

Every time Twink brings him up, the others have to navigate that delicate space between truth and kindness. They do not want to crush him. But they also know that part of becoming yourself is learning the difference between being loved and being used as someone else’s convenience.

That is where Silver Foxes becomes more than a comedy about aging gay men in Palm Springs. It becomes a story about generations teaching each other.

Benny, Chuck, and Cecil carry history in their bodies. Twink carries the future, but he is still learning how to see clearly. And somewhere between them is the real subject of the play: how a community survives when the world has tried, again and again, to make its people disappear.

Chosen Family Is Not a Slogan

The phrase “chosen family” can become easy to say and hard to feel. In Silver Foxes, it becomes real again.

Choosing a family is not just a charming idea. It is the friend who shows up. It is the person who remembers who you were before the world tried to reduce you. It is the one who tells the truth when everyone else is too polite. It is the person who opens the door when you have nowhere else to go. It is the circle that says: no, you do not get to disappear. Not while we are still here.

That is what makes this play land. It understands that family is not always biological. Sometimes family is built through laughter, conflict, care, memory, irritation, and loyalty. Sometimes family is the people who survive the same storm and then decide, somehow, to keep setting the table.

That is a serious subject. But the play does not treat it with solemnity. It treats it with comedy, because comedy is often how people tell the truth without breaking apart.

Tru-Collaboration™ and the Work Behind the Work

A successful evening of theater is never created by one person alone.

It is the work of the writers, director, actors, designers, stage crew, technical team, front-of-house staff, house managers, and everyone who helps move the audience from the street into the world of the play. When that works, you feel it.

You leave the theater remembering moments, performances, gestures, lines, images, and emotions.

That is what we call Tru-Collaboration™ — a shared creative effort where every person has the same job: to help make the production the best version of itself.

That kind of collaboration is often easier to see in professional theaters, touring productions, and Broadway shows, where more time, money, marketing, and technical support are available. I know that world from experience, having worked across several of those media.

But I also know something else from experience: there is a particular kind of beauty in productions created without all of those advantages.

When actors and crew members are often unpaid, when lighting, sets, video, and sound must be begged, borrowed, built, or invented, creativity has to come out of the woodwork. Everyone has to bring their talent, discipline, resourcefulness, and heart to the table.

That is one reason I have such deep respect for community and intimate theater. At its best, it reveals the creative process in its most honest form. People come together with limited resources and a shared purpose, and they make something live. They create a world where one did not exist before.

Silver Foxes benefits from that kind of commitment. It is not only a comedy about aging, friendship, chosen family, and visibility. It is also a reminder of what theater itself can do when a group of people choose to show up fully for the story, for one another, and for the audience.

The Arts Let Us Create Ourselves

My husband and I have never allowed anyone to place limitations on who we are. That may also be one reason we both found our way into the arts.

The arts gave us a way to imagine a future, shape it, create it, and then make it real.

I would hope everyone could experience that kind of freedom. But I also know that would be an outright lie. Not everyone gets that chance. Not everyone is given permission. And too many people spend too much of their lives fighting just to become visible.

That is one of the great strengths of art. It gives us perspectives we might never have seen otherwise. Exceptional art does not shrink the world. It expands it. It shows us that life is far more diverse, complicated, funny, painful, beautiful, and contradictory than we often allow ourselves to believe.

Silver Foxes does exactly that.

It lets us laugh, but it also asks us to remember.

It reminds us that theater can be entertainment and testimony at the same time. It can make a room laugh and then, without warning, bring back the names of people we thought we had already grieved.

Why This Play Belongs Here

There are plays that could happen anywhere.

Silver Foxes belongs here.

It belongs in Palm Springs because this city understands reinvention. It understands performance. It understands beauty and aging, glamour and survival, real estate and memory, the comedy of desire, and the ache of becoming visible later than you should have had to.

It belongs here because many people in the audience know exactly what is being said, even when no one explains it. They know the shorthand. They know the history. They know the feeling of laughing a little too hard because the alternative is to remember too much.

But the play is not closed off to people outside the community. Quite the opposite. While Silver Foxes is clearly written for us, and in many ways reminds us of our own journeys, it also opens the door for anyone willing to walk through it.

You do not have to be an older gay man in Palm Springs to understand friendship, loneliness, survival, regret, love, denial, humor, or the need to be seen.

You only have to be human.

The Palm Springs Art Museum Connection

I also want to put in a plug for the wonderful Palm Springs Art Museum, which is doing important work through its Q+ Art initiative. Exhibitions such as Tender Swagger: Works by LGBTQ+ Artists from the Collection and A Queer Arcana: Art, Magic, and Spirit, curated by David Evans Frantz, offer LGBTQ+ perspectives that many people, myself included, may not have fully encountered before.

Go see those as well.

Theater and visual art are doing the same essential work here: they are making visible the lives, histories, symbols, wounds, pleasures, and creative power of a community that has always had more to say than the world allowed it to say.

That is why this matters beyond one play or one exhibition. These are not side notes to culture. They are culture. They are records of how people lived, what they carried, what they survived, and what they created when the larger world would not make room for them.

Should You Go?

Would I tell people to go see this play?

Yes.

Absolutely.

No matter who you are.

If you are part of this community, you may recognize people you have loved, lost, avoided, laughed with, or sat beside at some impossible party where everyone was both too much and exactly enough. You may hear lines that open memories you did not expect to revisit. You may find yourself laughing first and remembering later.

If you think that you are not a part of this community, you are wrong. Every person that lives, or visits our communities is a part of this community. And that diversity matters, because it is the very foundation of what it means to be human. While we would identify with gay, we and everyone in this communities are so much more. They are the very fabric of what makes this place what it is. If I would have to describe it.  It is every color of light that comes through the Rose Window at the Notre Dame Cathedral. It is everyone of those colors that come through, together create one of the most memorable artworks in the world. The light that comes through is unforgettable, just as this community is unforgettable. 

Go to this play and this theater because it is only one of the places where we can safely sit inside someone else’s life for a while. Go because laughter is often the easiest way into compassion. Go because these characters may be specific, but their need to be seen, loved, protected, and remembered is universal.

Silver Foxes is funny, warm, pointed, tender, and deeply at home in Palm Springs. It is a comedy with a heart, a wink, and a little bite — which, frankly, is exactly how a silver fox ought to age.

Silver Foxes runs May 21–31, 2026 at Revolution Stage Company, 611 S. Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs. Performances are listed as Thursdays/Fridays at 7 p.m., Saturdays at 8 p.m., and Sundays at 2 p.m. Tickets are $49. 

Tickets are available through Revolution Stage Company’s website or the show’s ticket page.

About the Authors

Wesley Spencer and Marty Treinen have spent their lives in the arts, working across the full creative spectrum and becoming part of many communities through the opportunities they created for themselves. That lived experience shaped their belief that the arts, sciences, and creative process are not luxuries — they are survival mechanisms that have carried humanity through natural disasters, social upheaval, and historic change.

For the past 15 years, they have dedicated their work to expanding that opportunity for others. Their book, Universal Creative Intelligence: How the Arts and Sciences Propel Human Advancement, reflects that mission. It is also why they have made the Coachella Valley their home.

Now, they are launching an ambitious community vision: to make the Coachella Valley the birthplace of Universal Leadership Education™ — an educational pathway built on the core principles people need to lead their own lives, interconnect with other Universal Leaders™, and help expand their communities through a shared vision.

Universal Leadership Education is about choice. And anyone can choose to become part of it.

Palm Springs, CA

The Palm Springs City Council will convene Wednesday evening to take up a wide-ranging agenda that includes ongoing recovery efforts from last year’s deadly terrorist attack, a new tourism funding district, and a mid-year budget review.

The meeting begins at 5:30 p.m. in the Council Chamber at City Hall, 3200 E. Tahquitz Canyon Way, and will also be streamed live on the City’s YouTube channel, at palmspringsca.gov, and on Palm Springs Community Television Channel 17.

Among the most consequential items on the agenda is a resolution to extend the incentives deadline under the Disaster Overlay Zone for property owners rebuilding in the wake of the May 17, 2025 terrorist bombing. The extension would give affected residents and businesses additional time to take advantage of streamlined permitting and rebuilding incentives established in the disaster zone.

Council members will also hold a public hearing and vote on a resolution declaring the results of majority protest proceedings related to the proposed Palm Springs Tourism Infrastructure District. The outcome of that hearing will determine whether the district moves forward — a significant decision for how the city funds and manages tourism-related infrastructure going forward.

On the development and infrastructure front, the council will receive a presentation and community engagement update on the Ramon Bridge Project, a long-discussed transportation improvement effort. Members will also hear a presentation on the Caravanserai Palm Springs Program.

Rounding out the agenda, city staff will deliver a third-quarter fiscal year 2025–26 budget update and forecast, giving council members and the public a current picture of the city’s financial health. The council’s ad hoc subcommittee on the mayoral position will also deliver a report.

The full agenda is available at palmspringsca.gov.