MONTCLARION: May 13, 2011

There’s finally some good news in the fight against crime in the hills. Police have arrested a career criminal they caught red-handed in an abandoned home he was illegally occupying. Jewelry, electronics — in fact, two van-loads of stolen property — have been recovered. All this can be returned now to the rightful owners.

The question remains “… how many crooks are still out there looking for easy targets? Two friends in one week had their homes burglarized recently.

The sickening feeling of coming home and finding your sanctuary has been violated is just part of the problem. The other is the slow police response time.

“How am I supposed to put two young girls to bed in their home when the front door won’t even close,” writes one victim whose husband stayed behind to wait for police. “He waited for eight hours!” she says. “At 4 a.m., police finally showed up.”

MUSICAL NOTES: Next time you hear music coming from your neighbor’s house, don’t just assume it’s a party. It could be a homegrown nightclub coming to a street near you. They’re called living room concerts, and more and more people are hosting them — including a number of live music fans in Piedmont and Oakland.

Big in the folk music scene, rock and pop musicians are now using living room parties to market themselves as the recording business continues to change. One of my friends is bringing in Pat Dinizio, the lead singer of the Smithereens. He travels across the country doing these kinds of parties and is promoting his band’s new album, “2011.” I can’t wait to plop down on my friend’s sofa and be entertained.

TUNNEL TALK: Orinda gets silly on Saturday night, when Rich Little comes to the Orinda Theatre. How appropriate for the Art Deco movie palace to host one of America’s legendary comedians. Little can still put you in stitches with impressions of more than 200 celebrity voices. Tickets are available at the box office or at http://www.theorindatheatre.com.

ANIMAL TALES: Keep your eyes peeled for a mother mountain lion and her cub, spotted last week on Skyline Boulevard about 100 yards south of Sibley Volcanic Regional Preserve. Reader Bill Laidley says the cats bounded into the park when he approached them by car, but he got a good look at them.

“I could see four yellow eyes,” he writes, adding that the little one ran into the park first, followed by a really big cat with a tail that was about 21/2 feet long. “It jumped about three times and disappeared down the slope after the little one.” It’s not surprising. Isn’t there a flock of fat turkeys hanging out in the area?