Boulder Weekly 8.4.2022

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What do we do with these stories ?

Local filmmaker raises funds for new documentary about peer-on-peer sexual violence

by Emma Athena

LES CLAYPOOL WON’T STAY FRENCH VOLCANOLOGISTS CANNABIS SEIZURES AT THE BORDER SEIZE UP, P. 30 MARRIED FOR THE KIDS, P. 14 IN LOVE, P. 22

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news:

Local filmmaker raises funds for new documentary about peer-on-peer sexual violence

by Emma Athena

buzz:

Les Claypool on ‘South Park,’ and almost 40 years of Primus

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departments 7 The Anderson Files: Schumer, Manchin and a green future 9 Letters: Signed, sealed, delivered, your views 13 Astrology: by Rob Brezsny 18 Events: What to do when there’s nothing to do 21 Words: Susan Nevelow Mart is retiring from Wise Law Library. She will be missed.

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Publisher, Fran Zankowski Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Editor-in-Chief, Caitlin Rockett News Editor, Will Brendza Food Editor, John Lehndorff Interns, Ben Berman, Chad Robert Peterson Contributing Writers: Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Shay Castle, Angela K. Evans, Mark Fearer, Jodi Hausen, Karlie Huckels, Dave Kirby, Matt Maenpaa, Sara McCrea, Rico Moore, Adam Perry, Katie Rhodes, Dan Savage, Bart Schaneman, Alan Sculley, Will Matuska, Tom Winter SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Carter Ferryman, Chris Allred Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman CIRCULATION TEAM Sue Butcher, Ken Rott, Chris Bauer BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer Aug. 4, 2022 Volume XXIX, number 47 Cover, Photos courtesy Isabella Cohn, composite

by Susan France As Boulder County's only independently owned newspaper, Boulder Weekly is dedicated to illuminating truth, advancing justice and protecting the First Amendment through ethical, no-holds-barred journalism, and thought-provoking opinion writing.

Free every Thursday since 1993, the Weekly also offers the county's most comprehensive arts and entertainment coverage. Read the print version, or visit boulderweekly.com. Boulder Weekly does not accept unsolicited editorial submissions. If you're interested in writing for the paper, please send queries to: editorial@boulderweekly.com. Any materials sent to Boulder Weekly become the property of the newspaper.

690 South Lashley Lane, Boulder, CO, 80305 p 303.494.5511 f 303.494.2585 editorial@boulderweekly.com www.boulderweekly.com Boulder Weekly is published every Thursday. No portion may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher. © 2022 Boulder Weekly, Inc., all rights reserved.

Boulder Weekly welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@boulderweekly.com) or the comments section of our website at www.boulderweekly.com. Preference will be given to short letters (under 300 words) that deal with recent stories or local issues, and letters may be edited for style, length and libel. Letters should include your name, address and telephone number for verification. We do not publish anonymous letters or those signed with pseudonyms.

Letters become the property of Boulder Weekly and will be published on our website.

Schumer, Manchin and a green future

by Dave Anderson

R

ecently, UN Secretary General António Guterres warned that fossil-fuel driven climate chaos is ravaging the planet. He said, “We have a choice.

Collective action or collective suicide … Greenhouse gas concentrations, sea level rise, and ocean heat have broken new records. Half of humanity is in the danger zone from floods, droughts, extreme storms, and wildfires.”

The climate movement has grown by leaps and bounds but the fight for a sustainable future is tough. The fossil fuel industry has a stranglehold on the Republican Party and has had considerable clout in the Democratic Party.

However, Joe Biden’s Build Back Better (BBB) proposals had impressive environmental measures.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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The “physical infrastructure” (roads and bridges) component of BBB would turn into a smaller bi-partisan bill that passed and became law. The “human infrastructure” bill was passed by the Democratic majority in the House but was killed in the Senate by 50 Republicans and two Democrats, Joe Manchin (West Virginia) and Kyrsten Sinema (Arizona). That bill was designed to improve conditions for families with universal pre-K and subsidized child care, paid family and medical leave, free community college and expanded tax credits. Other progressive bills died in the Senate after passing the House.

Nevertheless, the negotiations about a Democrats-only filibuster-proof budget reconciliation package went on.

This angered Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who threatened to sabotage CHIPS, a bipartisan bill to boost the U.S. semiconductor industry, which many Republicans supported. But then Joe Manchin announced that he was quitting the negotiations over BBB. He was done. Democrats were enraged. McConnell rejoiced and let the CHIPS bill pass. see THE ANDERSON FILES Page 8

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THE ANDERSON FILES from Page 7

A few hours later, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manchin surprised everyone by saying they had a reconciliation deal which was more than 700 pages long.

They had been negotiating for many months. It’s called the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).The bill includes $369 billion for “energy security and climate change,” which is projected to reduce carbon emissions in the U.S. by 40%. Congressman Ro Khanna

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(D-CA.) said the agreement “will mark a historic direct investment in renewable energy and will unleash hundreds of billions of private investment for moonshot projects.” Khanna is a leading progressive Democrat who co-chaired Bernie Sanders’ 2020 presidential campaign.

The bill also includes a 15% corporate minimum tax on companies with profits of more than $1 billion a year. It would also continue expan-

AUGUST 4, 2022

sions to the Affordable Care Act that passed during the pandemic though 2025 and allow Medicare to pursue lower drug costs by negotiating directly with drug companies.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the country’s leading business lobby, has pledged to oppose much of the bill.

It would significantly raise taxes on the rich and it would give the underfunded Internal Revenue Ser-

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vice its biggest budget increase in its history ($80 billion over 10 years).

“This would certainly be the biggest corporate tax increase in decades,” said Steve Wamhoff, a tax expert at Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, a liberal think tank. “We’ve had decades of tax policy benefiting the rich, but this is really the first attempt to raise revenue in a progressive way that would begin to combat wealth and income inequality.”

National climate groups have criticized the bill for helping the fossil fuel industry. Manchin said it has “all of the above energy strategy.”

According to the Center for Biological Diversity: “The bill would require the Interior Department to offer at least 2 million acres of public lands and 60 million acres of offshore waters for oil and gas leasing each year for a decade as a prerequisite to installing any new solar or wind energy. If the department failed to offer these minimum amounts for leasing, no right of ways could be granted for any utility-scale renewable energy project on public lands or waters.”

That’s bad. Manchin is a coal multimillionaire who has received the most money from the oil and gas industry of any senator in this current electoral cycle. He is a unique Democratic senator. Trump won 70% of the vote in West Virginia. The coal industry is dying and Trump promised to bring it back.

But Manchin acknowledges reality. An analysis of the bill by online environmental magazine Grist notes: “The bill invests in almost every kind of clean electricity generation imaginable, and offers grants and loans to speed up the development of new transmission lines to carry that clean power to customers. Existing tax credits for wind and solar would be extended and made more accessible to tribes, municipal utilities, and rural cooperatives. These energy projects would get more money for meeting wage minimums or for siting projects in ‘energy communities’—in other words, creating clean jobs in areas that have long been hubs for fossil fuel work.”

This opinion column does not necessarily reflect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Email: letters@boulderweekly.com BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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BLM PROPAGANDA Your article regarding the wild horse roundups (News, “Lesser of two evils,” July 28, 2022) leaves out a very important factor. Many, if not all HMAs (public lands) also let private livestock graze for three to six months for pennies per acre. These grazing leases are the Holy Grail for Big Ag, and BLM is pro-livestock so they refuse to stop the grazing leases.

Horses do not overgraze like sheep and cattle; they crop grasses and move all the time, leaving grasses to recover even in drought conditions.

The BLM communications director who is adamant about these animals not being natural to the environment is not a biologist or archaeologist and therefore calling them domestic and feral is blatant BLM propaganda and flies in the face of scientific findings in recent years.

If truly domestic livestock were kept off our public lands and wild horses allowed to co-exist with elk, deer, pronghorn, bighorn sheep, bears, cougars and smaller wildlife, the ecological balance would eventually come back to support equines that have run wild for hundreds of years.

It is only the intervention by humans with livestock grazing that have caused the problem, and no one can believe wild horses held in feedlots is an answer.

I am positive it costs more to do helicopter roundups and feed horses in feedlots than it would to stop livestock grazing leases on all public lands. We as the taxpayers are funding this ecologically unsound practice without our permission. These same things are being done by Wildlife

Services, an agency of the Dept. of the Interior, to kill thousands of wild predators and other animals simply to try and protect privately owned cattle and sheep.

Quoting a BLM employee about science is ‘his slanted opinion’ and not the factual information your publication historically prints.

Anita Wilks/Golden EDITOR’S NOTE: There is ample research which shows North American horses became extinct 10,000 years ago.

Modern “wild” horses are all descendants of European horses brought by the Spanish in the 1400s.

KEEP IT ODD I completely support City Council Member Bob Yates’ position that we should NOT change our election cycle from odd to even years. His comments during the July 21 council meeting and in the June and July Bulletin provide plenty of facts and evidence on why this would be a bad decision for the City of Boulder and its governance.

The newly elected representatives would better serve their citizens by focusing their time and effort on the much more pressing issues effecting our city including the homeless epidemic and rampant crime that places our city among the worst in Colorado and top 20 in the nation. Progressive crime response policies are proven failures and have resulted in the recall of DAs in both San Francisco and LA. Let’s focus on fixing what is clearly broken.

Brett Kingstone/Boulder Email: letters@boulderweekly.com

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What do we do with these st!ies ?

Local filmmaker raises funds for new documentary about peer-on-peer sexual violence

by Emma Athena

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COURTESY ISABELLA GRACE COHN

sabella Grace Cohn wants to get ahead of the problem. Peer-onpeer sexual violence has no place in our community, she says, yet it’s become an endemic part of our culture. After collecting more than 30 hours of interviews with survivors and perpetrators alike, the 19-year-old from Boulder is betting on new storytelling techniques to move the cultural needle on sexual violence—and, she wonders, is the community ready to face itself ?

“If I’m to achieve one thing,” Cohn says of her forthcoming documentary Watch You Rise, it “would allow people to begin questioning—questioning everything.”

Raised in Boulder, Cohn has been activating conversations about sexual violence and the rights of survivors for years. Early this July, after U.S. Congressman Joe Neguse spoke in Boulder at the Women’s Freedom March organized by YWCA of Boulder County, Cohn took the microphone: “I’m here to share with you the radicalism of hope,” she told the crowd. “I believe that in order to implement the change that we want to see, we must begin to humanize one another.”

Through her documentary work, Cohn is effectively humanizing data about sexual violence, such as what was reported in last year’s Health Kids Colorado Survey (HKCS), the state’s only comprehensive survey on the health and wellbeing of young people. Every odd-numbered year, Colorado’s public high schools are called to participate (a randomly selected, small group of schools is required every survey; the rest can participate voluntarily); the anonymous student data and survey results help 10

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many public, private, STORYTELLER: and community orgaIsabella Cohn has nizations—including compiled stories of school districts—make sexual violence from decisions that best serve students at BVSD and elsewhere for a adolescents. forthcoming docuBy shining light on mentary. youth sexual assault from multiple angles, Watch You Rise aims to illuminate the injustices in our legal system, and what Cohn describes as “the failures of institutions that are supposed to provide young people with safe and healthy environments.”

In the fall of 2021, 340 middle and high schools (106,799 individual students) completed the HKCS, which contained several new questions about consent culture and sexual behavior—thanks, in part, to BVSD Survivors, a student-led advocacy group formed in the 2021 aftermath of Fairview High School student Aidan Atkinson’s acquittal of sexual assault BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

charges. The group worked with Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment (CDPHE) and other community organizations to construct and refine the survey’s new questions; seeking actionable data, many community stakeholders shared an interest in measuring the reality of consent culture, emotional control, sexting, and sexual violence perpetration in high schools today.

“Nearly 50% of the proposals received for the 2021 Healthy Kids Colorado Survey … involved adding questions related to consent and experiences of sexual violence,” a CDPHE spokesperson told Boulder Weekly.

“CDPHE convened the individuals who submitted these proposals, including youth, parents, researchers, school staff, nonprofits, and CDPHE’s Sexual Violence Prevention subject matter experts.”

Of the new questions, one asked if youths had ever “forced someone to have sex when it was unwanted,” and 533 (0.05%) students said yes. In another, 2,563 students reported “they were unsure if they received fully-granted consent from the other person,” while 12,495 were unsure if they gave their fully-granted consent to the other person.”

Cohn graduated in 2021 from Boulder’s Watershed School, a progressive, independent middle and high school. While she didn’t attend a BVSD school, she knew all the survivors from the Aidan Atkinson case and has several friends currently embroiled as survivors in criminal cases or civil suits in Boulder County.

“One of my friends had nine separate sexual assaults and pressed charges on two of them, but the other ones just … didn’t have enough evidence,” Cohn says. “And so what are you supposed to do with those, like, seven other stories?”

Turn them into a documentary, for one.

When Cohn began producing Watch You Rise, she was already several years deep into a survivor-story collection project. Her freshman year of high school, she founded the Me Too Teen Project, an online space for survivors of teenage sexual violence to share stories (anonymously), and in the four years since, the site has swelled into a striking repository of anecdotes equally empowering and devastating. Readers from every continent, most countries, and all 50 United States have accessed the site, she says.

Stories create rippling effects, the website states, which empower survivors and provoke meaningful change in communities and the world. Cohn herself is a product of this logic. She was provoked to begin the Me Too Teen Project by the surge of high-profile sexual violence cases that flooded mainstream news her freshman year. It was then that Christine Blasey Ford testified against Brett Kavanagh, and cases against Jeffrey Epstein hit the country with full force. “All these high-profile sexual assault cases—basically all these women and men and people were pressing charges for assaults that had happened as teenagers or as children,” Cohn recalls. “Even my teachers were talking about their own experiences.”

Cohn says her mother was assaulted multiple times as a young woman, and as Cohn watched her work with lawyers to determine which options were still available BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

to her, decades after the violations, Cohn saw how statutes of limitations limited options for those seeking justice. “Getting ahead of the problem” quickly formulated as one of her mottos, and part of the Me Too Teen Project’s mission is to help educate survivors on their rights before it’s too late. “What do you need to have a case? That’s not talked about,” Cohn says.

In holding a mirror to Boulder, Cohn is building upon the work of local storytelling change agents like Anna Hanson and Katrina Miller.

In 2011, Hanson published For Now: Words of the Girl Who Fought Back, a book about the aftermath of her rape; shortly after graduating from Fairview High School, her thenbest friend violently assaulted her and she took him to trial. As part of her healing process, Hanson wrote and shared her story with thousands around the country, describing it as a key part of her recovery.

Earlier this year, director/documentarist Katrina Miller premiered her film This Is [Not] Who We Are at the 2022 Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF). The 77-minute documentary probes the gap “between Boulder’s self-image and the more complex lived experiences—both historical and contemporary—of its black citizens,” and has since collected accolades at the Los Angeles Film Awards, Berlin Indie Film Festival, and Boston International Film Festival (among others) after taking home BIFF’s People’s Choice Award.

Cohn, building upon the reach of the Me Too Teen Project, has expanded her interviews to students all over the country. After graduating from Watershed, Cohn left Boulder to attend Hampshire College in Massachusetts but has since redirected her studies with a transfer this fall to Oregon’s Lewis and Clark College and plans to study anthropology and justice.

“People are coming from all around the country and around the world with different levels of sex education,” Cohn says. She hopes to show just how varied and muddled education about consent and sexual behavior has remained, despite generations of work to advance the rights of bodily autonomy beyond cis-white men.

COURTESY ISABELLA GRACE COHN

SPEAKING OUT: At least 15 of the 30 sources Cohn has interviewed for her documentary are from Boulder. She is actively searching for survivors from across the country.

see DOCUMENTARY Page 12

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DOCUMENTARY from Page 11

An eclectic off-road experience

10/08/2022

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SCAN ME

At least 15 of Cohn’s 30 sources are from Boulder, and she’s actively searching for more people to add testimony of their lived experiences. “You don’t have to show your face; I could alter your voice…. You could elect someone like your best friend, or a parent, or a partner, and they could read something or speak on behalf of you,” Cohn says.

There are limitations to story sharing, Cohn has realized. After interviewing survivors with open cases against their perpetrators in Boulder County, she witnessed “how survivors’ voices are being hushed” as a byproduct of the current criminal justice system. Sharing lived experiences and perspectives before trial risks negatively impacting a victim’s case once it’s heard in court (a defense could collect the survivor’s words to use as evidence against them); as such, many survivors decline to speak publicly until after their case is closed—this, however, risks silencing the survivor forever should an acquittal protect their perpetrator behind claims of libel or slander.

But for every limitation, Cohn also sees the multifold opportunities and positive impacts of storytelling. “For a lot of people, I was the first person they’d ever told their story to,” she says. “One of the only ways I’ve been able to do it is, like, it’s not about me—these stories have nothing to do with me. My job is to hold space, always.”

With the recent launch of a GoFundMe, Cohn seeks financial support for her own camera and recording equipment (she’s been borrowing film gear over the last year), plus editing and sound software, legal support, marketing assistance, and more—all parts of a toolbox she’s been assembling to help her build upon the existing work of sexual violence prevention; inviting perpetrators into her film is one way she hopes to push the envelope.

For years, community-based organizations like Moving to End Sexual Assault (MESA), Safehouse Progressive Alliance for Nonviolence (SPAN), and BVSD Survivors have cultivated safe spaces in Boulder County for victims of sexual assault to seek validation, community and education. “Your story does matter, which is a part of the conversation that does need to be had. But I think it’s already being had, and already has been had,” Cohn says—thus, she’s hoping to widen the table, add more chairs, and include more of the stakeholders involved in the violence.

“Most perpetrators are survivors,” she notes. “Everyone can be assaulted and violated, and everyone can violate; like, every single person has the ability to violate, purely just because people don’t say a hard ‘No.’” In this sense, the complexity of sexual violence shouldn’t be ignored. “I feel like it would be ignorant to only shine the light on one part of it. And the other thing is, like, from what I know, most perpetrators don’t watch films about survivors,” she says. “If you have a film that includes football players, includes perpetrators, includes, like, your typical junky dude … I mean, there’s no typical perpetrator, but if you were to include them, that may open the door for one type of perpetrator, or a family, to watch it.”

Hearing from perpetrators directly can also add valuable insight to sexual violence prevention strategies. Cohn recently interviewed a former BVSD athlete; he described the boys’ locker-room culture: “The way they talked about any girl … they wanted them for their body,” he says in a recording that Boulder Weekly reviewed. “Obviously, not every player on the team was that way, but, like… no one really held anyone accountable for the way they talked about anyone, or like what they’re doing, or like the way they’re treating the girl, like, never, ever, ever.”

The biggest issue, he continues, is that they “don’t view [women] as the same or equal, and feel like they can do what everybody wants. So in order for the sexual part to be fixed, I think, like, men have to look at women as an equal,” he says. “The misogyny part was super, super, like, always there.”

This Fairview graduate is himself a survivor of a sexual assault that happened later in college, yet he’s also able to speak to his own lived experiences of being unsure about what counts as consent from a woman. Storytelling, he believes, can help bridge the gaps in equality, bodily autonomy, and justice.

“When you hear a victim of sexual assault talk about how it affects them, and how they can describe every detail because it’s something they’ll never forget, I think that’s something that is ... good reinforcement to show people what it does to someone,” he says. “Because [sexual violence] alters their life completely, like they’re a different person after that. So I think [storytelling]— that’s what there needs to be more of.”

Email: editorial@boulderweekly.com l

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

by Rob Brezsny ARIES

LIBRA

weeks: 1. Exercise your willpower at random moments just to keep it limber. 2. Be adept at fulfilling your own hype. 3. Argue for fun. Be playful and frisky as you banter. Disagree for the sport of it, without feeling attached to being right or needing the last word.

4. Be unable to understand how anyone can resist you or not find you alluring. 5. Declare yourself President of Everything, then stage a coup d’état. 6. Smile often when you have no reason to.

7. If you come upon a “square peg, round hole” situation, change the shape of the hole.

“The mind I love must have wild places, a tangled orchard where dark damsons drop in the heavy grass, an overgrown little wood, the chance of a snake or two, and a pool that nobody’s fathomed the depth of.” Be inspired by her in the coming weeks, Libra. I suspect you will flourish if you give yourself the luxury of exploring your untamed side. The time is ripe to wander in nature and commune with exciting influences outside your comfort zone. What uncharted frontier would you enjoy visiting?

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Tips to get the most out of the coming

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Libran author Katherine Mansfield wrote,

TAURUS

SCORPIO

your symbolic helper, I would pick Venus. The planet Venus is ruler of your sign, and the goddess Venus is the maven of beauty and love, which are key to your happiness. But I would also assign Hephaestus to you Tauruses. He was the Greek god of the metalworking forge. He created Zeus’s thunderbolts, Hermes’ winged helmet, Aphrodite’s magic bra, Achilles’ armor, Eros’ bow and arrows, and the thrones for all the deities in Olympus. The things he made were elegant and useful. I nominate him to be your spirit guide during the next ten months. May he inspire you to be a generous source of practical beauty.

Scorpios crave only the finest, top-quality highs. You embrace joys and pleasures that generate epiphanies and vitalizing transformations. Mediocre varieties of fun don’t interest you.

You avoid debilitating indulgences that provide brief excitement but spawn long-term problems. In the coming weeks, dear Scorpio, I hope you will embody these descriptions. It’s crucial that you seek gratifications and delectations that uplift you, ennoble you, and bless your future.

APRIL 20-MAY 20: If I had to choose a mythic deity to be

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: To be a true Gemini, you must yearn for

knowledge—whether it’s about coral reefs, ancient maps of Sumer, sex among jellyfish, mini-black holes, your friends’ secrets, or celebrity gossip. You need to be an eternal student who craves education. Are some things more important to learn than others? Of course, but that gauge is not always apparent in the present. A seemingly minor clue or trick you glean today may become unexpectedly helpful a month from now. With that perspective in mind, I encourage you to be promiscuous in your lust for new information and teachings in the coming weeks.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: Cancerian drummer Ringo Starr is in the

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Though he has received less acclaim than his fellow Beatles, many critics recognize him as a skillful and original drummer. How did he get started? At age 13, he contracted tuberculosis and lived in a sanatorium for two years. The medical staff encouraged him to join the hospital band, hoping it would stimulate his motor skills and alleviate boredom. Ringo used a makeshift mallet to bang the cabinet near his bed. Good practice! That’s how his misfortune led to his joy and success. Is there an equivalent story in your life, Cancerian? The coming months will be a good time to take that story to its next level.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: One of the inspiring experiments I hope you

will attempt in the coming months is to work on loving another person as wildly and deeply and smartly as you love yourself.

In urging you to try this exercise, I don’t mean to imply that I have a problem with you loving yourself wildly and deeply and smartly. I endorse your efforts to keep increasing the intensity and ingenuity with which you adore and care for yourself. But here’s a secret: Learning to summon a monumental passion for another soul may have the magic power of enhancing your love for yourself.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Musician Viv Albertine has recorded four

albums and played guitar for the Slits, a famous punk band.

She has also written two books and worked as a TV director for 20 years. Her accomplishments are impressive. Yet she also acknowledges that she has spent a lot of time in bed for many reasons: needing to rest, seeking refuge to think and meditate, recovering from illness, feeling overwhelmed or lonely or sad. She admiringly cites other creative people who, like her, have worked in their beds: Emily Dickinson, Patti Smith, Edith Sitwell, and Frida Kahlo. I mention this, Virgo, because the coming days will be an excellent time for you to seek sanctuary and healing and creativity in bed.

Top Ten Novel of 2021

by The Bookbag United Kingdom

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: When you are functioning at your best, you

Reviewer Jill Murphy: “Oh, I loved, loved, reading this novel. It’s wild and anarchic.

Not a book for the fainthearted, Crosshairs of the Devil is violent, grisly and gruesome but also wonderfully charismatic and utterly compelling.”

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: “Wish on everything,” advises Sagittarian

author Francesca Lia Block. “Pink cars are good, especially old ones. And first stars and shooting stars. Planes will do if they are the first light in the sky and look like stars. Wish in tunnels, holding your breath and lifting your feet off the ground. Birthday candles. Baby teeth.” Your homework during the next two weeks, Sagittarius, is to build a list of further marvels that you will wish on. It’s the Magic Wish season of the year for you: a time when you’re more likely than usual to encounter and generate miracles. Be proactive! Oh, and very important: What are your three top wishes?

Available at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, & Boulder Book Store Photo: Chris DeCicco

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Author Aldous Huxley wrote, “That people do not learn much from the lessons of history is the most important lesson that history has to teach.” While his observation is true much of the time, I don’t think it will be so for you in the coming weeks. I suspect you will triumph over past patterns that have repeated and repeated themselves. You will study your life story and figure out what you must do to graduate from lessons you have finally, completely learned.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: In the film I Origins, a scientist says this

to a lover: “When the Big Bang happened, all the atoms in the universe were smashed together into one little dot that exploded outward. So my atoms and your atoms were together then . . . my atoms have always known your atoms.” Although this sounds poetic, it’s true in a literal sense: The atoms that compose you and me and everyone else were originally all squeezed together in a tiny space. We knew each other intimately! The coming days will be an excellent time to celebrate your fundamental link with the rest of the universe. You’ll be extra receptive to feeling connection. You’ll be especially adept at fitting your energy together with others’. You’ll love the sensation of being united, merged, blended.

PISCES

Clothing with a Romantic Bohemian Flair Exquisite Hand-Made malas & Jewelry

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: My Piscean friend Luna sent me a mes-

sage that sums up how I feel about you these days. I’ll repeat it here in the hope it will inspire you to be perfectly yourself.

Luna said, “Every time I meet someone who was born within, like, two weeks of my birthday, I end up with the impression that they are the loopiest and wisest person I’ve met in a long time. They are totally ridiculous and worthy of profound respect. They are unhinged and brilliantly focused. They are fuzzy-headed dreamers who couldn’t possibly ever get anything practical accomplished and they are lyrical thinkers who charm me with their attunement to the world’s beauty and impress me with their understanding of how the world works.

Hahahahaha. Luckily for me, I know the fool is sacred.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Come see our beautiful new selection of clothing from Bali!

1909 9th St, Ste 125 • Boulder, CO • 970-618-6291

TheKamaConnection.com

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Just a wink of the eye Les Claypool on ‘South Park,’ and almost 40 years of Primus

by Adam Perry

W

hen you call up Primus bassist and singer-songwriter Les Claypool, it’s tough to know where to start the conversation. His work with Oysterhead, the Frog Brigade, Duo De Twang and Sean Lennon just scrapes the tip of the Bay Area-native’s gigantic career in music, and he’s also a filmmaker and father. Some folks remember Claypool only for a hit 1995 single in which he sang, “Wynona loved her big, brown beaver and she stroked him all the time,” but in reality, he and his Primus bandmates followed in the footsteps of Rush as a rock trio that could play truly challenging, creative, awe-inspiring music while churning out unforgettably eccentric lyrics.

The 58-year-old frontman, currently on tour with Primus covering Rush’s daunting 1977 album A Farewell to Kings, got into Rush in junior high, and I got into Primus in the sixth grade, so adolescent fandom seemed like as good an entryway as any.

ON THE BILL: for the most part we’ve been this cultish Primus. 7:30 band. p.m. Tuesday and Who do I think is like that now? You’ve Wednesday, Aug. 9 got people like St. Vincent—she’s got a and 10, Red Rocks very interesting, unique perspective on Ampitheater, Morthings and she does pretty well. I think rison. For a full list there’s always that element of people that of tour dates, visit have a little different take on things on primusville.com the planet, and look at the world a little differently. Every now and again one of them pushes a button that people can identify with.

We pushed kind of a small button, but we’ve been able to consistently hold this button down. We have a pretty loyal fanbase, which is pretty amazing. It’s gotten my son through college [laughs].

Boulder Weekly: Somebody gave me a copy of Sailing the Seas of Cheese at my 12th birthday party, and it changed my life. Primus became my first real “favorite band” and kids really did say “Primus sucks!” to me all the time, and then a couple years later you were suddenly a household name with two straight top-10 albums.

What was it like to be really weird and unique yet popular, and who holds that mantle today?

Les Claypool: Well, we had our toes in the mainstream. We were definitely not in heavy rotation on MTV. Even when the “Wynona” video came out, they would only play it after midnight.

We’ve always been those guys that sort of existed under the radar, you know? And we have since the get-go. We had a few little splashes with MTV and radio, but 14

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AUGUST 4, 2022

BW: I was actually going to ask if you have kids, because mine has been listening to “Tommy the Cat” and “Wynona” since preschool and is now 12 and saying, “Papa, I know what these songs are about now.” Was there a moment when your son got some of the puns in your songs?

LC: There’s really nothing to get. There’s really no hidden tickle-the-taco meaning or anything like that, in any of this stuff, you know? It’s all pretty benign; you can take it however you want, but… the original inspiration for “Wynona’s RED LIGHT MANAGEMENT Big Brown Beaver” was me walking back to the car after fly fishing with a good buddy of mine, and it was dusk, and I came around the corner, and it was very low light, and the thing saw me right as I saw it, and it flipped right in front of me and popped its tail. It was this giant, big, brown beaver and that got stuck in my head: l

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

“big, brown beaver.” It was originally just supposed to be this little hillbilly ditty, but the lyrics fit perfectly with this bass riff that I had. It just ended up being that tune, and it ended up being the tune that everybody gravitated toward when it was time to pick a single. It sort of just fell together; it was never meant to be this, “Oh, Les is trying to make this sexual innuendo.” Obviously there’s a little dual entendre there, but it’s more just a wink of the eye than anything. I’m not trying to get away with some little pervy notion or anything.

BW: Conspiranoid, the new Primus EP, has an 11-minute track called “Conspiranoia.” What made you want to put together a sort of opus like that?

LC: We have “Harold of the Rocks” and these songs that are pretty long and progressive. We do have a pretty strong progressive element, so it doesn’t seem like that much of a stretch to me. The notion was, “Hey, we’re getting ready to go do this Rush thing again. We should have some new material,” but we didn’t feel the need to inflict a whole album on people. They’re gonna need to see the whole Rush thing, and they’re gonna wanna hear some of the old songs, and the deep cuts. We all do that.

When I would go see Rush back in the day, it was nice to hear a couple new songs, but I wanted to hear “By-Tor” and “Cygnus” and the songs that represent a time in my life, of my youth, and bring me back to that time when that was the soundtrack of my life. So, we didn’t want to put out a whole new record and subject people to that.

The thought was, “Let’s do a 20-minute song,” and it turned out to be an 11-minute song. I had this notion of “Conspiranoia” that I’d been kicking around for a while in notebooks, and I had the whole chorus in my head. I brought it in and we just fleshed it out, and then we needed a B-side, and then we realized “We need two B-sides because this is a long-ass song for vinyl.”

BW: Do you feel shocked by the whole Q-Anon thing, and space lasers and Pizza Gate, or do you feel like when Trump was elected that kind of person just felt more comfortable admitting they believe stuff like that?

LC: Well, we live in a time when people feel somewhat entitled to offer their opinions, and they have a platform now that didn’t exist before. Now you have this machismo that you didn’t really see so much of before the internet, because you can be this phantom in space that throws your opinion out there. I actually find some of it humorous, and I find some of it frightening, so that’s what the song (“Conspiranoia” ) is about. There’s a lot of elements within the content that is factual, and some is fiction, but it’s all based on this notion of myth and misinformation being held as gospel.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BW: What’s it like having Tim “Herb” Alexander back in the band? People like me who were growing up when Primus broke out think of him as the drummer in the band, but when I was old enough to see concerts, you had Brain and then Jay Lane on drums.

LC: Well, both Brain and Jay Lane were in Primus before Tim Alexander. Tim happened to be the ninth drummer that Primus has had, since I started the band in 1984. Tim is the known voice of Primus for the drums, but we came to an impasse in the late ’90s. He wanted to do other things and we were fine with that. We brought in Brain, who had history with us and he was friends with Ler [guitarist Larry LaLonde]. It seemed very logical, and Brain is a monster. He’s very different. He’s more of a Bonham player. Tim’s more of a Bruford, Neil Peart player. Tim came back again, and it worked out for a little while and then it didn’t, and we brought in Jay, who was in the band right before Tim was originally in the band.

He was kind of the one who set the tone for Primus, for what you knew, before Herb stepped in. It was another very logical choice. He’d been in Sausage and Frog Brigade and we had a lot of history together. Bands are very passionate, emotional relationships; it’s like a marriage, and sometimes they work, and sometimes they don’t.

Sometimes you get back together and sometimes you don’t. It’s wonderful that he’s back and it’s wonderful that we are all in the same headspace.

be one of the things that Primus was able to connect over, because we have such varied backgrounds but we were always able to come together on Rush. Doing the tour with them was amazing; it was like meeting Evil Kneivel or something—such a big part of your youth. To be able to go out and tour with them was pretty amazing, and they became very good friends of ours, so that’s always a bonus.

BW: You’re doing these two South Park 25th anniversary shows at Red Rocks August 9 and 10.

Does the anniversary take you back to the ’90s—a time when a band like Primus and a show like South Park could get a real shot at the mainstream?

LC: South Park was just these college kids that had this video that was popular on the internet, and they were big Primus fans! They got a hold of us and they said, “Will you do the music? We’ve got a pilot we’re gonna do for Comedy Central.” We never even thought it would get on television, let alone take over the world, and that is mainstream. South Park is a huge cultural phenomenon, and that’s an example right there of something no one would have ever expected to be such a huge, huge part of our culture. It’s a continuously relevant social statement that seems to not wane through time.

BW: Ween is also playing, and I remember them being on Beavis and Butthead and popping their head into the mainstream with “Push th’ Little Daisies.” What parallels do you see between Primus and Ween? You started around the same time but were on different coasts.

LC: There are definitely some kindred spirits there.

I’m buddies with Deaner and we’ve got a lot of the same perspective on things, both musically and creatively in general, and we both like to fish. I think it’s just the notion of taking a satirical poke at the world with your music, and it works with the whole South Park mentality. I think what you’ve got here is a show of birds of a feather flocking together. I think it’s going to be spectacular.

BW: It’s similar to Pearl Jam in a way, because they’ve had five drummers and people want to hear the drummer who was on the album that got them into the band. Fans get really attached.

LC: As they should. You do the best you can, but it’s like staying married for the kids: At some point, you gotta do what keeps you moving forward.

BW: How did you decide to play Rush on the road?

LC: We had always joked, “We should go out and do Hemispheres in its entirety,” because we did the Willy Wonka thing; we did the goblins record years ago; and I did Pink Floyd’s Animals with the Frog Brigade. We had always kinda joked about it, but then we thought, “Maybe we should do something like that.” You have to do “Cygnus I” before you do “Cygnus II,” and 2112 seemed too obvious, and Moving Pictures seemed too obvious, so Farewell to Kings just seemed like the right record to do.

BW: Heading back to Red Rocks, what comes to mind when you think of Colorado?

LC: Colorado’s always been a warm spot for us. One, Red Rocks is one of the greatest venues in the world. Our first awayfrom-home trip was to Boulder, and that was when the South Park guys first saw us. We were asked to go out and do some shows in Boulder, and they gave us a train ticket on Amtrak. We came out and played Alferd Packer Day at the college there, and Matt Stone and Trey [Parker] were there in the audience and they saw us and flipped out, and they were big fans from that point on. It’s kind of interesting that that’s how it all started, on our very first trip to Boulder many years ago.

Email questions to: editorial@boulderweekly.com

BW: Primus actually toured with Rush just after breaking out in the early ’90s. What was that like for you, having grown up a huge fan?

LC: When I was first starting to play, and all throughout high school, Rush was an obsession of mine. It happened to l

AUGUST 4, 2022

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COURTESY OF INDIGO GIRLS

ON THE BILL: Indigo Girls. 8:30 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 14, Rocky Mountain Folks Fest, 500 W. Main St., Lyons. For a list of other shows on their tour, visit indigogirls.com

Sweet 16

16 albums in, Indigo Girls have no plans to slow down

by Alan Sculley

M

ost musicians found their activities curtailed during the pandemic. For the Indigo Girls, the past two years have been a particularly busy season.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The duo of Emily Saliers and Amy Ray just released a livestream project, Look Long: Together, that took a year and a half to complete. They’re the subject of an upcoming documentary film, and had their music reinvented for the jukebox musical movie Glitter & Doom. Saliers has been writing music for two stage musicals and Ray will soon release a new solo album.

That’s quite a busy schedule, even for an act like Indigo Girls, who have been consistently active since releasing their first album, Strange Fire, in 1987.

Most bands that debuted around that time—if they’re still together—now only sporadically make albums (if at all) and are considered heritage acts. That’s not Indigo Girls.

“We still feel like we are a working band,” Saliers said in a recent phone interview. “We tour and we make albums and we work, and that feels good.”

This latest spate of activity has come on the heels of the release of the 16th Indigo Girls’ studio album, Look Long, which arrived in May 2020. A stirring effort, Look Long not only features highly melodic folk-pop (on songs like “When We Were Writers,” “Look Long” and “Sorrow And Joy”) that has always been an Indigo Girls signature, but rhythmically creative songs that touch on hip-hop (“S**t Kickin’”), Caribbean music (“Howl At The Moon”) and catchy upbeat rockers (“Change My Heart” and “K.C. Girl”).

But by the time Look Long was released, the pandemic had scuttled plans for a full-band tour to support the album.

Now Saliers and Ray, along with longtime violinist Lyris Hung, are making up for that lost tour, following up some 2021 shows with an extensive tour this summer in support of Look Long. Saliers said the show will feature about five songs from the latest album along with a generous selection of back catalog material, all featuring Hung.

“She’s a force,” Saliers said of Hung.

“She has such a musical palate and all different sounds on her violin and her fingertips, and just a remarkable musician.

She really elevates our show every night.”

Next year, Indigo Girls hope to do a full-band tour.

“Some people like the band and some people like us acoustic or just stripped down,” Saliers said. “We just haven’t had the opportunity to tour with the band because of COVID and we really miss that.

So it was good to put out the streaming concert and it will be great to get back with the band next year.”

That streaming concert, Look Long: Together, debuted May 8 on the VEEPS platform and features a career-spanning set of songs (some of which feature appearances from guests Becky Warren Tomi Martin, Trina Meade and Lucy Wainwright Roche) combined with commentary about the songs from Saliers and Ray. Because of the pandemic, performances had to be woven together from separate film shoots to create full-band live versions of songs.

The first step in the process was filming Saliers and Ray playing songs as a duo.

“On some (of those) tracks, we sent them to the players and they listened to our version and played their parts live,” Sailers said. “Then that all got mixed together. Then on other versions, the rhythm section went in first, at least on the recordings, then Amy and I played to the rhythm section live.”

After the footage was complete, extensive editing followed.

“Amy and I spent hours and hours watching it come together, making suggestions, ‘Let’s do a split screen here,’ ‘The lighting needs to be fixed (here),’ This camera angle is no good, let’s use this shot,’ all these meticulous choices you have to make,” Saliers said. “In the end, we worked so hard on it, we were actually a little discouraged at the eleventh hour. And then watched it and were really pleased with it.”

The year and a half of work that went into the livestream took up some of the pandemic-forced downtime. Saliers also spent considerable time working on two musicals that she hopes might eventually get to Broadway.

“One of them is tentatively called Country Radio,” Saliers said. “It’s the story of a young queer girl growing up in the South and her journey. And she’s also a writer and has a friend who is an incredible singer, and it’s her working through her love of the Southland that she knew and grew up with and all of the struggles involved with that. Then the other one is tentatively called Starstruck.”

The latter musical, Saliers said, chronicles the efforts of a park ranger and her town to be designated as a dark sky reserve while integrating a love story involving the ranger and an NPR podcaster whose arrival shakes up the town.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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One thing Saliers has not done yet is write for another Indigo Girls album.

Considering that Look Long was completed before the pandemic, there should be plenty of inspiration for lyrics from Saliers and Ray, both of whom have long been activists in a wide variety of social causes, including LBGTQ issues, Native American rights, immigration reform and climate change. But Saliers said she’ll need time to process the pandemic to even know what to say about the experience.

Saliers and Ray might also have to consider how to respond lyrically to the wave of conservative initiatives, the biggest of which so far is the Supreme Court ruling overturning Roe v. Wade, the landmark case that legalized abortion.

Like many pro-choice advocates, Saliers didn’t think Roe v. Wade would be overturned and is appalled at its demise.

Legal access to abortion had been established law for decades with multiple subsequent Supreme Court rulings that affirmed the Roe decision. Plus, polls have consistently shown a solid majority of Americans didn’t want Roe overturned.

“But the truth is there has been a concerted effort (to overturn Roe),” Saliers said, noting that conservative politicians and activists and certain parts of the evangelical community are among those who have mounted a strategic plan to gain the power in various levels of government and the courts that was needed to target Roe and other progressive issues. “It’s been going on a long time. So while the thought before was shocking, it’s easy to understand how we’ve come to this place.”

Both Saliers and Ray are gay, and Saliers fears the conservative movement will next seek to repeal rights that the LBGTQ community, as well as minorities, have gained over the years. She and Ray plan to be active in efforts to preserve (or restore) abortion rights and to support politicians who support such causes.

“As a gay person who’s married, I’m like, ‘Is this my country?’ And that’s like a big question to ask,” Saliers said. “I understand the complexities of history and how the pendulum swings, I understand that. But when it affects peoples’ lives and there’s this huge disconnect between this small group of zealots making decisions because they’re so removed from the reality of peoples’ lives, it’s a lot to take in and a lot to live with and a lot to manage.”

Email: editorial@boulderweekly.com AUGUST 4, 2022

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E VE N T S

EVENTS

n Screening and Q&A: ‘The Cannabis Question’

6-7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Aug. 10, City Council Chambers, 350 Kimbark St., Longmont.

NOVA Science (PBS) investigates the story of cannabis from the criminalization that has disproportionately harmed communities of color to the latest medical understanding of the plant. What risks does cannabis pose to the developing brain? How much do we know about its potential medical benefits? As cannabis becomes socially accepted, scientists are exploring its long-term health consequences.

If your organization is planning an event, please email the editor at crockett@boulderweekly.com

n Butterfly Effect Theatre of Colorado presents ‘Dorothy’s Dictionary’

n Tim Heidecker

5:30-6:30 p.m. Friday, Aug. 5, NoBo Art Center, 4929 Broadway, Unit E, Boulder. betc.org High school student Zan is putting in his community service hours when he meets Dorothy, a book-lover who’s losing her eyesight. Each of them might just have what the other needs— if they can only find the words. Powerful, heartwarming, and timely, this new play by award-winning playwright E.M. Lewis is perfect for older and younger adults.

7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder.

Tickets: $39.50-$45 Tim Heidecker (from Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job! and beyond) is taking his No More Bullshit stand-up character on the road, as well as his Very Good Band to present the first two-act evening of Tim Heidecker comedy and music. Heidecker’s An Evening with Tim Heidecker stand-up special has reached more than 1 million views on YouTube, and has prompted publications like Vulture to dub him “the poet laureate of delusional assholes.”

n Boulder Book Store presents An Evening With Colson Whitehead (virtual event)

6 p.m.-7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 9, virtual event.

Tickets: $17-$27 boulderbookstore.net Harlem Shuffle’s ingenious story plays out in a beautifully recreated New York City of the early 1960s. It’s a family saga masquerading as a crime novel, a hilarious morality play, a social novel about race and power, and ultimately a love letter to Harlem. Hear author Colson Whitehead speak about his novel at this virtual event. Your ticket includes admission and a paperback copy of Harlem Shuffle.

Tickets are available on Eventbrite.

n Colorado Brazil Fest

n Boulder Taco Fest

11:30 a.m.-7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 6, Boulder Civic Area, 1001 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder. Tickets: $30-$60, bouldertacofest.com The best tacos from Boulder County vendors, a curated list of craft breweries, tequila tasting, high-flying Luchadores, awesome live bands, and lots of free fun for the kiddos at a beautiful venue right on Boulder Creek.

Aug. 11-14, Pearl Street Mall, Boulder, coloradobrazilfest.org Colorado Brazil Fest (CBF) is the largest festival of its kind in Colorado, and also one of the largest in the nation, with 1,500-2,000 participants each year. Colorado Brazil Fest is hosted by Boulder Samba School, the only organization in the state dedicated to promoting the rich heritage of Brazilian music, dance and culture, with a track record of engaging thousands of local residents in performances and educational music programs since its inception in 2009.

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly.com/events 18

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AUGUST 4, 2022

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

EVENTS

CONCERTS

H FRIDAY, AUG. 5

Blue Canyon Boys. 6 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Tickets: $10 (cash) Pete Zimmer Quintet. 6 p.m.

Caffe Sole, 637R S. Boulder Road, Boulder. Tickets: $15 (cash) Eivør with Emily Jane White.

7 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $20-$25 Richard Smith. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: $30 Rowdy Shadehouse with special guest Kodak Connection. 7:30 p.m. Nissi’s Entertainment Venue & Event Center, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. Free Les Claypool’s Bastard Jazz featuring Stanton Moore, Mike Dillon, Skerik. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St., Boulder. Tickets: $39.50-$45 The Desert Furs. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder.

Tickets: $10

H SATURDAY, AUG. 6

Nogo Gilbillies. 5 p.m. Caribou Room, 55 Indian Peaks Drive, Nederland. Free

tainment Venue & Event Center, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette.

Tickets: $15-$20 SATURDAY AUGUST 27

The Iguanas. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder.

Tickets: $20

THURSDAY AUGUST 4

DJ Z-TRIP &THE GROUCH CERVANTES’ GRAND REOPENING!

FRIDAY AUGUST 5

SHIFT FT. JAMES GREBB

SHIFT FT. MESO W/ SUPER FUTURE, CNOPES & SAGZ

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 2

Finn O’Sullivan. 5 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder

CHIEF ADJUAH

(FORMERLY CHRISTIAN SCOTT)

PURPLE PARTY: TRIBUTE TO PRINCE

FRIDAY AUGUST 12

TK & THE HOLY KNOW-NOTHINGS

FT. MEMBERS OF THE MOTET, D’ANGELO, TURKUAZ, & MORE PHISH DICK’S AFTER PARTY

SATURDAY AUGUST 13

NEIGHBOR

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3

SUNDAY AUGUST 14

RICHIE HAWTIN W/ SAMA’ ABDULHADI & DECODER PRESENTED BY AFTERHOURS ANONYMOUS

Flatirons Jazz Orchestra. 7 p.m.

Nissi’s Entertainment Venue & Event Center, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. Tickets: $20

W/ EXTRA GOLD

SABIN RAI & THE PHARAOH SUNDAY AUGUST 21

ANNA MOSS & THE NIGHTSHADES THE COPPER CHILDREN

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22

SATSANG

THURSDAY AUGUST 25

W/ GRAHAM GOOD

DJ AFTERTHOUGHT

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 23

FRIDAY AUGUST 26

W/ PROJECT ASPECT

KEN CARSON

DUAL VENUE!

SATURDAY AUGUST 27

JOSEPH CAPRIATI & CHRISTIAN LOFFLER

VANDOLIERS & SHOVELIN STONE

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24

see CONCERTS Page 20

WEDNESDAY AUGUST 31

BOLLYWOOD DANCE PARTY DIWALI BASH 2022

MORSEL & ARMCHAIR BOOGIE

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30

PHISH DICK’S AFTER PARTY

WEDNESDAY SEPTEMBER 7

SHIFT 1 YEAR ANNIVERSARY FT BOGGDOGG & IMANU W/ FLORET LORET, XENOLINGUIST (BALLROOM) + NOTLÖ W/ NOER THE BOY, YOKO (OTHER SIDE)

SATURDAY OCTOBER 8

PI’ERRE BOURNE

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 10

HANNAH WICKLUND SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 17

SORRY FOR PARTY ROCKING

SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 24

HIRIE

DEAD FLOYD

MONDAY SEPTEMBER 26

TUESDAY OCTOBER 11

BINO RIDEAUX

DOPE LEMON

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 27

APPALACHIA ON THE ROCKS III

SATURDAY OCTOBER 15

DEORRO

FT DRAYTON FARLEY

FRIDAY & SATURDAY OCTOBER 28-29 DUAL VENUE!

COURTESY NEU MANAGEMENT

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OG GARAGE A TROIS

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 22

BALLYHOO

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

PHORA

THURSDAY& FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 8-9

SHIFT FT. KYRAL X BANKO

SUNDAY OCTOBER 9

NORDIC FOLK: Faroese singer-songwriter Eivør brings her blend of folk, pop, jazz, classical and electronica to Fox Theatre Aug. 5.

DOGS IN A PILE

AZTROGRIZZ (LIVE)

DUAL VENUE!

Latin Sol. 7:30 p.m. Nissi’s Enter-

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 1 SATURDAY SEPTEMBER 3

MONOPHONICS THURSDAY OCTOBER 6

Pete Zimmer Quintet. 6 p.m. Caffe Sole, 637R S. Boulder Road, Boulder.

Tickets: $15 (cash)

SHIFT FT. MYSTIC GRIZZLY & TRIPZY LEARY

SATURDAY AUGUST 20

W/ AHEE

Tall Poppy String Band. 6 p.m.

THURSDAY AUGUST 18

SAM MORROW

TVBOO

H WEDNESDAY, AUG. 10

DUKE DEUCE

FRIDAY AUGUST 19

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 9

FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 16

Jazz Jam Session with Host Brad Goode. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: At the door

TUESDAY AUGUST 16

NASCAR ALOE

PHUNK SESSIONS

FT. MEMBERS OF THE METERS, LETTUCE, THE MOTET & DUMPSTAPHUNK & MORE! PHISH DICK’S AFTER PARTY

W/ SPECIAL GUESTS FLIGHT NIGHT

H MONDAY, AUG. 8

SKWEEZY JIBBS WEDNESDAY AUGUST 17

SUNDAY SEPTEMBER 4

KOTA THE FRIEND

Kober and Sitero. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder.

Tickets: $5 at the door

SATURDAY AUGUST 6

THE TEXAS GENTLEMEN THURSDAY AUGUST 11

DUAL VENUE!

Adam Bodine Sextet. 7 p.m.

Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette.

Tickets: $10-$20

(FLINTWICK X LUSID + SOLO SETS) ABSTRACT HOUSE

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 1

H SUNDAY, AUG. 7

SHIFT FT. ACID KATZ

THURSDAY SEPTEMBER 29

SHIFT FT. ROHAAN FRIDAY SEPTEMBER 30

TAUK & DOPAPOD

SPIRIT BEAR & SCHEMA THINGS

SATURDAY NOVEMBER 19

FRIDAY & SATURDAY OCTOBER 7-8

VICTOR WOOTEN FEAT STEVE BAILEY & DERICO WATSON

JERRY JOSEPH & THE JACKMORMONS

SIGN UP FOR CERVANTES’ TEXT BLASTS FOR FREE TICKETS AND SPECIAL OFFERS WEEKLY! TEXT THE WORD CERVANTES to 1-888-445-1343 2637 Welton St • (303) 297-1772 • CervantesMasterpiece.com

AUGUST 4, 2022

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EVENTS

CONCERTS

CONCERTS from Page 19

COURTESY ADAM BODINE

Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Free Bourbon Blues & Grooves Tony Luke Band. 7:30 p.m. Nissi’s Entertainment Venue & Event Center, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. Free Wylie. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $5 at the door

H THURSDAY, AUG. 11

Eliza Gilkyson with Don Richmond. 7 p.m. eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St., Boulder.

Tickets: $24 Tom Amend Octet. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: $10-$15 ATOMGA with Float Like A Buffalo. 7:30 p.m.

Nissi’s Entertainment Venue & Event Center, 1455 Coal Creek Drive, Unit T, Lafayette. Tickets: $15-$30 Nik Parr & The Selfless Lovers. 8 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $10

PLAY ON: (Top) Adam Bodine brings his sextet to Muse Performance Space on Aug. 7. (Above) Grammy-nominated Eliza Gilkyson plays eTown Hall on Aug. 11.

LOVING with Sam Burton. 9 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $16-$18

For more event listings, go online at boulderweekly.com/events

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AUGUST 4, 2022

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

JUST ANNOUNCED

JUST ANNOUNCED

SEP 10 ...................................................................................... OG GARAGE A TROIS SEP 13 .................................................................................................... OH HE DEAD OCT 8 ................................................................................................... KYLE WALKER

SEP 1 ...................................................................................................... DISCO LINES SEP 17 ...................................................................................................... WAX MOTIF SEP 27 .......................................................................................... ANTHONY DOERR SEP 30 ......................................................................................................... FRUITION NOV 5 ..................... CORY WONG FEAT. SIERRA HULL AND ROBBIE WULFSOHN DEC 8 ........................................................................................... TREVOR WALLACE DEC 9 ...................................................................................................... PAPADOSIO

THU. AUG 4 JACK BARTON ENTERTAINMENT & 97.3 KBCO PRESENT: JBE TRIPLE A SUMMITFEST

MATT MAESON, DELTA SPIRIT, MYRON ELKINS

THU. AUG 4 105.5 THE COLORADO SOUND PRESENTS

SON VOLT

THU. AUG 4

JACK BROADBENT

JACK BARTON ENTERTAINMENT & 97.3 KBCO PRESENT:

TUE. AUG 9

JBE TRIPLE A SUMMITFEST

KT TUNSTALL, ALLISON PONTHIER

AEG PRESENTS

TIM HEIDECKER LIVE!

FREE OUTDOOR STAGE

THU. AUG 11

FRI. AUG 5

KUNC PRESENTS 1A REMAKING AMERICA

EIVØR

EMILY JANE WHITE

SAT. AUG 13

THU. AUG 11

50 YEARS OF MUSIC

ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL

88.5 KGNU & WESTWORD PRESENT

LOVING

GREG SCHOCHET & LITTLE AMERICA

SAM BURTON

SUN. AUG 14

FRI. AUG 12

105.5 THE COLORADO SOUND PRESENTS

BOMBINO

RED FANG

SELASEE & THE FAFA FAMILY

BELL WITCH & AERIAL RUIN: STYGIAN BOUGH, HELP

WED. AUG 17

MICHAEL “MIKEE T” PATRICK TIERNAN

SAT. AUG 13

Les Très Riches Heures de Susan Nevelow Mart

THE PAMLICO SOUND + THE BURROUGHS

A CELEBRATION OF LIFE FEAT. MEMBERS OF THE MOTET, DPO & MORE

CARD CATALOG

by Steve Elder

Susan Nevelow Mart, beloved director of the Wise Law Library at CU, is retiring. She will be missed.

WWW.FOXTHEATRE.COM

WWW.BOULDERTHEATER.COM

1135 13TH STREET BOULDER 720.645.2467

2032 14TH STREET BOULDER 303.786.7030

UPCOMING CONCERTS and EVENTS at FRI AUG 5

The sun was bright upon us once.

We thought we could out-stare the moon, but it’s still there, slo-o-owly winking.

Now the gold flourisher crops the tension out our memories, outcomes established — first glances, first kisses, first ecstasies; warm invitations to the feast of life: steak au poivre, marcona almonds, the taste of cherry, toasted sesame oil, a dewy vineyard at dawn, petting zoo child-smiles, first stereo, first album, dancing alone, or not, clad, or not, bon voyage kisses (“I’ll miss you”) with a parenthetical hug.

SAT AUG 6

SAT AUG 7

KODAK CONNECTION

LATIN SOL

“DANCE PARTY”

FLATIRONS JAZZ ORCHESTRA

WED AUG 10

THU AUG 11

FRI AUG 12

BOURBON, BLUES, & GROOVES

ATOMGA & FLOAT LIKE A BUFFALO

ROWDY SHADEHOUSE SPECIAL GUEST

TONY LUKE BAND

There was a time when gravity was kinder.

If we floated around procrastinating, at least we had something to do.

Now the sun has our back.

It does a backbend and memorializes our memories as we live them, as we walk in the freedom of an uncreative jubilance, unforced and awarely, connoisseurs of the condition to be.

FREE ADMISSION

THE SAMPLES SPECIAL GUEST

LANTERN BY SEA

live entertainment, special events, great food and drinks

Nissi’s Entertainment Venue & Event Center Steve Elder is in charge of Tea Service at the University of Colorado Law Library.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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NEW LOCATION

1455 Coal Creek Drive Unit T • Lafayette Get your tickets @ www.nissis.com

AUGUST 4, 2022

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NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC

A volcanic love triangle Producer Shane Boris on ‘Fire of Love’

by Michael J. Casey

W The Dairy Arts Center presents

M u s i c a l Va n g u a r d s

Emmaline August 18

“Meet Emmaline – the modern-day equivalent to your favorite Jazz musicians and singers of the past, such as Ella Fitzgerald, Billie Holiday, and Blossom Dearie.”

- Galore

Miss Mojo August 13 On Sale Now! Scan for details and tickets

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AUGUST 4, 2022

e think of this film as a love triangle between ON THE BILL: Maurice and Katia, the volcano and the spirit of Fire of Love is the French New Wave,” Shane Boris tells me over now playing in the phone. The L-word comes up a lot in our chat limited release. about Katia and Maurice Krafft.

“What’s interesting about them is that they died doing what they love, but they also lived doing what they love,” Boris says. “I think that’s what’s really incredible about them.”

Incredible is another perfect descriptor for the Kraffts. They were French volcanologists whose love for volcanoes was only surpassed by their love for each other.

Rare are marriages this strong and obsessions this captivating. It’s what makes Fire of Love fantastic.

Directed by Sara Dosa and produced by Boris, Fire of Love is compiled from over 200 hours of archival 16mm footage shot by the Kraffts.

“We were just completely blown away,” Boris says. “[We] had a hard time conceiving of how anything could be better than the footage they shot and the story of their life that they told.”

And how they told that story is half of the fun. In hopes of attracting funding, Katia and Maurice brought cameras wherever they went to document their research. They became volcanology pioneers “because of the risk they were willing to take to get the most perfect shot imaginable,” Boris says.

Constructing Fire of Love primarily from archival footage is a bit of a departure for Boris. Born and raised in Littleton and a graduate of Colorado Academy, Boris turned his attention to documentary filmmaking after a chance encounter with a producer on a flight to India changed everything. That was over 20 years ago, and since, Boris has produced a dozen docs, including 2019’s Academy Award-nominated Edge of Democracy. Vérité is his métier, with stories developing in real-time. But, as is the refrain these days, the pandemic put a stop to that. That’s when Boris and Dosa, who were familiar with the Kraffts while researching their previous doc, The Seer and the Unseen, became aware of the treasure trove the Kraffts had compiled.

“Sara Dosa and our incredible editors, Erin Casper and Jocelyne Chaput, went through all of this footage,” Boris says. “Slowly trying to build the story of the film using the footage and the trail that Maurice and Katia left behind.”

The story they discovered was “chock full of interesting anecdotes, incredible footage and detailed explanations of the science of volcanology,” Boris explains. “But it was also replete with a tremendous amount of questions and unknowns—many of which we would never be able to understand.”

So they turned to the Kraffts’ written material and the photos left behind. Interviews with colleagues, friends and family followed. “But it still wasn’t enough,” Boris says. “We needed something else.”

That something else was narration. Enter Miranda July: “[Someone] who would approach it with the spirit of curiosity and attempt to get closer to a better understanding [of the Kraffts] and what they thought. Even with the recognition that we would never fully understand.”

For more, tune into After Image Fridays at 3 p.m., on KGNU: 88.5 FM and online at kgnu.org. Email: editorial@boulderweekly.com l

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: I’m a 36-year-old married woman who fantasizes about her husband of 10 years being intimate with other women. This isn’t a new thing for me. I’ve fantasized about this for years, but we’ve never acted on it. He is intrigued but afraid that it might somehow damage our relationship. But I’ve done some research on it and it’s something I’m eager to try. (With my husband’s consent, of course!) But in all my research, I’ve found different and sometimes conflicting definitions of what it means to be a “cuckquean.” I’m interested in watching my husband pleasure and be pleasured by another woman in a purely physical way. I’m not interested in being “cheated on.” No flirty texts, no unsanctioned coffee dates. I’ve read accounts of women who are turned on by the humiliation and insecurity of their partner being with others, often women the husband knows “in real life,” either through work or through social life.

In my case, I would rather my husband not even know the name of the other woman.

And he would only be able to sleep with her with my consent and I would want to be “in control” of the situation. So, what does that make me? Do cuckqueans come in all different proclivities? I feel like the end result is the same—my partner bedding someone else—but my motivation is different than what I’ve seen.

—What The Cuck Am I? Dear WTCAI: “The scenario WTCAI describes sounds more like hotwifing with the gender roles reversed than cuckolding,” said Venus, host of The Venus Cuckoldress Podcast. “She’s interested in hothusbanding!”

Let’s quickly define terms: a man into hotwifing enjoys “sharing” his wife with other men, WTCAI, and a woman into hot husbanding enjoys “sharing” her husband with other women. (All this sharing, of course, is consensual.) Cuckolds, on the other hand, aren’t sharing their wives.

They’re being “cheated on” by their wives.

And cuckqueans aren’t sharing their husbands. They’re being “cheated on” by their husbands. Cuckolds and cuckqueans, by definition, don’t just wanna see their spouses fucking another person, they also want their partners to humiliate and degrade them. (I put “cheated on” in quotes because the “cheating” is consensual and symbolic; likewise, “sharing” is in quotes above because spouses aren’t property.)

“But cuckolding and hotwifing have a really wide spectrum of practices and dynamics,” said Venus. “Some cucks are submissive and get into degradation and some cucks really aren’t subs or into degradation at all. I don’t see why hothusbanding/

cuckqueaning can’t be just as varied.”

Venus is right: there are guys out there who call themselves cuckolds but aren’t subs and don’t wanna be humiliated or degraded. But I would argue that these guys aren’t cuckolds, WTCAI, just as I would argue that you aren’t a cuckquean. We have lots of words to describe letting your partner fuck other people—open, monogamish, swinging, mate-swapping, hotwifing, hothusbanding, stag and vixen, CNM—but we only have one word to describe letting your partner fuck other people while getting off on being humiliated and degraded: cuckolding.

And since most people understand cuckolding to involve humiliation and degradation, telling someone you’re a cuckold when you’re not into those things is like telling someone you’re a power bottom when you don’t like anal or telling someone you’re into impact play when you don’t like having your ass so much as tapped. It confuses rather than clarifies. As for setting up a sex date for your husband with an anonymous woman, Venus had a practical suggestion.

“There are a lot more men out there looking for casual sex than there are women,” said Venus, “which makes WTCAI’s fantasy difficult to pull off. But I know a woman whose wife wanted to be blindfolded and then have a group of women come in—all strangers to her—and go down on her. Not an easy fantasy to pull off either! So, they hired a sex worker to facilitate things and it was amazing. Perhaps this would be an ideal solution—hiring a sex worker—because then WTCAI would be in total control.”

Finally, WTCAI, re-reading your letter just now… it sounds to me like what you really wanna do is… whore your husband out. It’s an expression I’ve heard gay men use to describe setting up an anonymous encounter for their boyfriends or husbands.

You find someone you wanna see fuck your husband—taking care to find someone your husband would wanna get fucked by—and all your husband needs to know is when and where. Cuckolds and cuckqueans are subs and a sub can “top from below,” as the saying goes, but at least officially a cuck doesn’t have the power. Someone who’s whoring his husband out, on the other hand, has all the power. And that’s what you want, right?

Follow Venus on Twitter @CuckoldressV, and check out her podcast, blog, dating advice, and more at www.venuscuckoldress.com.

Email questions@savagelove.net Follow Dan on Twitter @FakeDanSavage. Find columns, podcasts, books, merch and more at savage.love.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Stressed Out? Think Massage!

Call 720.253.4710 All credit cards accepted No text messages

September 9 - 11, 2022

AUGUST 4, 2022

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Corn do’s

and don’ts Grilled, cooler-cooked or butter-poached— here’s how to appreciate freshly picked local sweet corn

by John Lehndorff

F

CORN, SWEET CORN: ’Tis

the season for grilling, steaming, coal-charring and butter-poaching one of Colorado’s most beloved crops.

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or true believers, corn comes slathered with anxiety and an expiration date.

On the way back from swimming at the pond with us kids, my mother always stopped at a specific farm for the sweetest sweet corn. It was special because they picked corn all day, not just in the morning.

We had to get it home fast, shucked and into salted boiling water and rolled over a pound of butter. My mom became “Hot Rod Rosie” and sped home.

It was as if the ears were labeled: “Best eaten by 6 p.m.” and the pleasure encased in those yellow and white kernels would disappear like a wisp of smoke in a breeze.

People have been appreciating corn in this area for a long time. Research suggests that maize (corn) and squash were brought to the Colorado Plateau by immigrants from the south about 1000 to 2000 B.C.E. Now the state is known for Olathe and other varieties whose sweetness seems impervious to time or refrigeration, but Mom was still right. The sooner you eat corn after it’s picked, the better it tastes.

However, she was wrong about the boiling water and the salt.

First, when you pick up a dozen ears at the farm stand or market, be sure to go through the corn-buying ritual. Look for green outer husks, lots of silk and firm kernels when you peel it back a little. Pick the heavy ones.

Great corn requires only a minimal amount of cooking, but the technique matters a lot to the final taste. So don’t boil them in water. That can harden the kernels, as does adding a bunch of salt to the water. Salt it when you’re ready to eat it.

To Grill Corn: Preheat your gas grill. Shuck the outer leaves and silk, leave the inner leaves to help retain moisture, and roast the ears for about 10 minutes, rolling them frequently. When grilling naked cobs, brush first with vegetable oil before grilling 8 to 10 minutes.

Serve immediately.

To Steam Corn: Add an inch or so of water to a big pot and a steamer basket. When the water starts to boil, add the shucked ears, cover the pot and steam for about four minutes.

Serve immediately.

To Microwave Corn: Corn on the cob cooks remarkably well in a microwave as long as you don’t overzap it. It works best if you cook un-shucked ears for about three minutes.

Remove, cool slightly, shuck and serve the ears immediately.

To Make Cooler Corn: Clean out an insulated cooler. Add about a gallon of boiling water and a dozen or more shucked ears. Close the top and about 20 minutes later, “Voila!” The corn is cooked and will remain warm in the cooler for quite awhile.

To Make Coal-Charred Corn: You have to wait until your charcoal fire has become just hot coals, but it’s well worth it for the flavor. Pre-soak unhusked corn in salted water and then

AUGUST 4, 2022

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

DOG EAT DOG: place the ears directly on the hot coals. Turn them for about 10 Do you have minutes, husk and serve immediately. an opinion on To Make Butter-Poached Corn: This may seem excessive, dogs at restaubut if you like buttered corn this is the supreme technique. First, rants? melt two or three pounds (or more) of good unsalted butter. Add shucked ears of corn or cobb-ettes to barely simmering butter.

Cover and cook for about six minutes. Serve immediately. About the butter: You can either poach other foods in it—chicken breasts and lobster tails come to mind—or strain the corn-accented butter and use it for baking and saute-ing.

(Use fresh Boulder County corn on the cob to make the Zolo Grill’s famous jalapeno corn soup. See the recipe on Page 29.)

The Nibbles Index: Menu Scanning

87: That’s the percentage of consumers who say they prefer reading menus on paper versus scanning QR codes, according to a national Technomic survey. More than 55% said digital menus are hard to read on a phone.

Local Food News: New Lyons Bistro

Chef Theo Adley has opened Marigold, an Italian/ French bistro, at 405 Main Street in Lyons … Coming soon: Bambei Brewing, 100 Superior Plaza Way, Superior … Landline Doughnuts & Coffee in Longmont is serving a summer chiller: Dole Whip pineapple soft serve dairy-free sorbet … Salida’s Dram Apothecary has introduced canned adaptogenic Mushroom Cola infused with cordyceps, chaga, reishi and shitake mushrooms.

Dogs at the Table

Comments—both very pro and very con—are pouring in from readers and folks who work at Boulder County eateries about whether dogs should be allowed to dine in restaurants. Send your opinion to me for an upcoming column at: Nibbles@BoulderWeekly.com

Words to Chew On

“Roasted in the husk in the hottest possible oven for forty minutes, shucked at the table, and buttered and salted, nothing else, it is ambrosia. No chef’s ingenuity and imagination have ever created a finer dish.” —From the 1964 novel Murder is Corny by Rex Stout John Lehndorff hosts Radio Nibbles at 8:20 a.m. Thursdays on KGNU (88.5 FM, kgnu.org).

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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GROW YOUR FUTURE WITH ESCOFFIER www.escoffier.edu AUGUST 4, 2022

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Free

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Taste The Difference Think all water tastes the same?

See why Eldorado Natural Spring Water keeps winning awards for taste.

2011 10TH STREET, BOULDER CO (ON PEARL AND 10TH) OPEN 9AM - 11PM WELCOME. A SOLITUDE PLACE FOR STUDY, WORK, GATHER & MEET.

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WE INVITE YOU TO COME RELAX, BREATHE, DRINK, EAT AND LOVE. ENJOY OUR SELECT MENU OF AROMATHERAPY INFUSED OXYGEN THERAPY, HERBAL ELIXIR TEAS, COFFEE, ORGANIC WINES AND ORGANIC DESSERTS.

Enter code BW21 at checkout

www.EldoradoSprings.com • 303.604.3000

A taste of modern Japan in the heart of Boulder Summer is here and our three patios are the perfect place to immerse yourself in everything Pearl Street has to offer.

Prefer the great indoors?

Take a seat at one of our lively bars, feast alongside the jellyfish or sink into a comfy lounge.

If a sushi picnic more your style, all of your favorites are available for curbside pickup too.

No matter how you choose to dine don’t miss our ever-evolving specials, delicious seasonal cocktails, and latest rare whiskey!

Sun-Thur 11am to 10pm | Fri-Sat 11am to 11pm BoulderJapango.com | 303.938.0330 | 1136 Pearl

JapangoRestaurant

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The Distilling Dames of Dry Land A celebration of spirited women at the Longmont distillery

by Matt Maenpaa MA TT

unique offerings and techniques, all while enjoying a libation or two.

The Dames have grown in the past five years, from just a few people to more than thirty active members and a couple dozen more on the email list. Dressman said that the ranks swelled during the pandemic, with more women feeling restless and eager to socialize. The Dames did virtual meetings during the shutdowns, she explains, offering cocktail kits they could make at home during the sessions.

Monthly meetings vary in subject, from making bitters and simple syrups to cocktail classes. The most recent meeting was focused on tasting Dry Land’s signature spirit, a mesquite-smoked cactus spirit similar to mezcal.

The timing was fortuitous, Dressman says.

“It’s not often that we have blanco, reposado and anejo available in the tasting room,” she explains. “So we got to talk all about cactus and the dive into the varieties of mezcal and the geographic designations.”

Dressman’s enthusiasm for cocktails and spirits is palpable in conversation, but don’t call her pretentious MA

A PA EN

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e just want to hang out and drink together,” says Kelly Dressman, brand manager at Dry Land Distillers in Longmont.

Dressman refers to the sense of camaraderie that flows between the sisterhood of employees that help operate breweries and distilleries throughout the county and surroundings, from bar staff to brand managers and beyond.

That booze-borne friendship is what gave Dressman the reins for the Distilling Dames, Dry Land Distillers’ all-women cocktail and spirits club.

“All the members of the Dames definitely have an interest in what we do and how we do it. They love the informational piece,” Dressman says.

“But it’s amazing to see all of the different friendships blossom.”

Originally founded by Jenna Poppenhagen, a Longmont server and bartender looking for educational opportunities for herself and other women with a passion for spirits and distillation, the Dames predates the opening of Dry Land’s original location. The group would visit a variety of local distillers, learning about their

P HO TOS

DETAILS: Second Thursday of each month, Dry Land Distillers, 519 Main St., Longmont, hello@drylanddistillers.com

or a snob.

“I like to use the term discerning,” she says with a laugh. “People say I’m a snob, I tell them I’m just discerning with my vices.”

Jokes aside, Dressman and the Dames want to make a space for curious enthusiasts to explore a side of the bar not often seen. When Dry Land moved into its current space, owner Nels Wroe gave the Dames a personal tour before the tasting room opened.

Other meetings have involved bottling, barreling and weighing in on the spirit cuts coming off the still itself.

Dressman hopes to get a mash day on the schedule for the Dames, so that they can get first hand experience with the beginning of the distillation process.

Keeping with Dry Land’s ethos of locally sourced and environmentally conscious process and product, Dames meetings have also focused on produce straight from the garden. The occasional cocktail developed in a Dames meeting can wind up on Dry Land’s cocktail menu, like the Lilac Blush from this past spring.

“We stick more to Dry Land’s roots and get things fresh from the ground,” she explains. “A lot of that carries through into the Dames.”

Annual membership with the Dames runs $149 per person, which includes a cocktail each meeting, a T-shirt and a small bottle of Dry Land’s spirits. Dressman and the Dames try to keep variety in the meetings, but offerings like bitters and cocktail classes often see an annual return.

“At this point we’ve done a lot of different things and we try not to recycle them, but there’s a lot of demand from new members for things they’ve missed,” Dressman says. “If you’re doing something like making bitters, it’s OK to do it again. Our members can develop new varieties for their cocktails.”

Email questions to: mattmaenpaa@gmail.com

LONGMONT’S NEWEST STEAKHOUSE featuring NoCo’s Best Beef and Freshest Seafood in town

NEW HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS START THURSDAY!

NOW SERVING BRUNCH SATURDAY & SUNDAY 9am - 3pm

$3 WELLS, 16 OZ DRAFT BUDLIGHT AND COORS LIGHT $4 HOUSE WINE, 16OZ DRAFT MODELO AND BLUE MOON $5 ELEVATED SELTZER, DRAGONBERRY LEMONADE, HOUSE MARGS, 16OZ KILT LIFTER AND BRECKINRIDGE BREWERY! 1/2 OFF SELECTED APPETIZERS!

Under New Management • New Menu

NEW HOURS: Tuesday - Thursday 3pm - 9pm • Friday 3pm - 10pm • Saturday 9am - 10pm • Sunday 9am - 8pm • Closed Monday’s

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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300 Main St. Longmont, CO • (303) 834-9384 • dickens300prime.com AUGUST 4, 2022

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Voted East County’s BEST Gluten Free Menu

Order Online at morningglorylafayette.com New Hours: Open 7 days a week: 7:30am - 3:00pm daily 303.604.6351 | 1377 FOREST PARK CIRCLE, LAFAYETTE

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BRUNCH

S AT & SU N 9 AM - 2 PM

LUNCH

TUE-FRI 11AM-2PM

AUGUST 4, 2022

DINNER

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F R I & S AT 4:30PM-9:30PM

S U N D AY 4:30PM-9PM

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

by John Lehndorff Cool tofu salad satisfaction, French Vietnamese cupcakes on Colfax, and Zolo’s famous corn soup

I

’ve been sipping stout at Boulder’s Mountain Sun Pub since it opened in 1993, typically paired with a good cheeseburger and hot fries. Especially in the dark months, that comfort trio filled various voids.

However, on a hot July afternoon at Table Mesa’s Southern Sun Pub, I looked at the menu and leaned toward the light and a Thai Tofu Salad.

I like fried tofu cubes anyway, especially in Asian dishes, but the Pub’s housemade garbanzo tofu upgrades the taste and tex-

ture of the vegan protein. Tossed in a sweet chili dressing, it’s a chewy treat topping spinach, veggies, pickled carrots and toasted cashews in a ginger and lime dressing.

I also shared a Boom Boom sandwich—basically, an Italian Philly steak sub without the steak. Ciabatta bread is packed with chewy mushroom filets, roasted red peppers, melted mozzarella, basil and roasted garlic mayo.

The stouts can wait for the February freeze. I abided with a mellow Sobchek Pilsner.

JOHN LEHNDORFF

Another Roadfood Attraction: Trans-cultural Cupcakes

Recipe Flashback: Soup Off the Cob

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JO HN

oulder’s Zolo Grill was well known for its Southwestern cuisine before being shuttered during the pandemic. Over the years, Colorado’s famous sweet corn was showcased on the menu every summer, including in this memorable soup. Zolo’s executive chef Paul Schutt shared this recipe in the 1990s. For added corn oomph, simmer the scraped corn cobs in water, strain and use the liquid instead of water in the recipe.

Zolo Grill Corn Jalapeno Soup 3 tablespoons butter 2 cups white onion, diced 3 cloves garlic, minced 1 jalapeno, stemmed and deseeded 1 ancho chile, stemmed and seeded 1/8 teaspoon chopped fresh thyme 1/8 teaspoon chopped fresh oregano 3 tablespoons minced fresh cilantro 1/4 teaspoon ground cumin 1/4 teaspoon chili powder 1/8 teaspoon ground black pepper 2 1/2 cups fresh corn off the cob 4 1/2 cups water 2 corn tortillas Salt, to taste Sour cream (for topping) Preheat the oven to 350 degrees. Saute all items except the last four in butter until onions are light brown. Add water and bring to a boil. Cut one corn tortilla into strips and toast strips and a whole tortilla until golden brown.

After the soup comes to a boil, add the whole toasted tortilla. Save the strips for a garnish.

Remove soup from heat and let it cool for 10 minutes. Puree soup in a blender until creamy. Return to low heat on the stove. Taste and adjust salt.

Place in wide bowls and garnish with tortilla strips and sour cream.

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n the road in the Denver area, it’s fun to simply search for: “bakeries near me.” That’s how I found Bánh & Butter Bakery Cafe at 9935 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora. It’s a new place from Thoa Nguyen, the next generation of the family that made Denver’s New Saigon Restaurant a culinary landmark.

Situated in the former Third Culture mochi doughnut site, this bakery beautifully melds three dessert and bread traditions: French, Vietnamese and American.

The glass cases are filled with pastries and desserts including filled croissants, fruit cruffins, multi-layer stacked mille-crepe cake slices and egg tarts.

Using fresh house-baked chewy baguettes, the cafe also dishes made-to-order banh mi sandwiches layered with cold cuts or vegan paté plus pickled daikon and carrots, cilantro, cukes, jalapeno and garlic aioli.

Given the choices, I was captured by the serious cupcakes in cool fillings, flavors and frostings ranging from bright green pandan-coconut to purple ube.

For the haul back up to Louisville, I paired a well-crafted, soft-crumbed cupcake that combined the flavors of Thai iced tea paired with an iced Vietnamese coffee.

Culinary Calendar: Sake and Chocolate

Send information about Boulder County and Colorado food and drink events, classes, festivals, farm dinners, farm stands and tastings to: Nibbles@BoulderWeekly.com.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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olorado Sake Co. in Denver hosts an Aug. 3 sake and artisan chocolate tasting, coloradosakeco.com … Slow Food Denver hosts a Sept.

17 dinner at Hope Hill Farm in Lafayette with chef Sam McCandless of Boulder’s Corrida, slowfooddenver.org/summer-slow-down … Don’t miss the summer 2022 Guide to Boulder County’s Roadside Farm Stands available at BoulderWeekly.com.

AUGUST 4, 2022

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29

Legalization is working

Border Patrol sees notable drop in cannabis seizures, as surge in harder drugs floods the market

by Will Brendza

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t was around 3 a.m. when Border Patrol agents stopped the black GMC truck just outside of Campo, California. It was a routine ordeal, until their K9 alerted to the scent of drugs and the agents subsequently found 250 pounds of pills laced with fentanyl—a haul worth over $3,679,000.

“Our agents prevented these dangerous narcotics from reaching our communities,” Chief Patrol Agent Aaron Heitke said of the bust. “I am proud to say that our Border Patrol agents here in the San Diego Sector are responsible for over 50% of all the fentanyl seized by the U.S. Border Patrol this fiscal year.”

In 2021, U.S. drug seizures like these rose 25% over the previous year. Within that, cocaine seizures doubled, methamphetamine seizures tripled, and fentanyl interdiction spiked by sevenfold, says the Border Report. That’s despite the agency’s claim that over 60,000 drug traffickers slipped through Border Patrol’s grasp last year, despite its complaints of being understaffed and under-resourced.

But not all drugs saw those wildly increased traffic rates. Marijuana seizures, by contrast, dropped substantially in 2021 and are continuing to do so in 2022. Last year agencies seized 160 tons of cannabis (or about 874 pounds every day); whereas this year, with three months left in 2022, agents have seized just 56 tons (an average of 408 pounds a day). That’s a 54% reduction in just one year. Since 2018, cannabis seizures have dropped by 71%.

It’s a trend that isn’t slowing down, either. Even as other drugs flood across the border at increasing rates, cannabis smuggling is a dying enterprise, according to

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Border Patrol and other agencies.

“Overall, DEA marijuana seizures have been declining since 2015,” the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) and Drug Enforcement Agency’s (DEA) 2020 National Drug Threat Assessment Survey reads. “The decrease in seizures is most likely caused by the challenges presented by the changing marijuana legal landscape.”

That’s about as close as the DOJ and DEA have ever come to admitting that legalization is working.

According to them, the “challenges” presented by the legal landscape are that it’s effectively diminishing U.S. demand for black market cannabis as users seek safer, higher-quality, legally available alternatives.

Domestic businesses are making money that’s being taxed, and which would have otherwise gone straight into cartel coffers.

As a result, the cartels are pivoting. They’ve ramped up production and transportation of other highly addictive and oftentimes deadly drugs like fentanyl and meth.

Between 2018 and 2021, meth seizures rose by 128% and synthetic opioids like fentanyl rose 456%, according to Wola.org.

The cartel is also getting increasingly involved in human trafficking, according to area law enforcement. Officers from the Mexican state of Chihuahua are reporting that cartels are moving to replace independent human smugglers with their own affiliated gang members. Arizona police have reported similar things in Sonora, where the Sinaloa cartel has started forcing migrants to wear huge packs of drugs as they cross the border, effectively turning innocent migrants into fully blown drug mules.

Prohibition continues to fuel this. And not the prohibition of cannabis, but prohibition of drugs in general. With

AUGUST 4, 2022

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the demand for black market cannabis declining, and enforcement for other drugs still escalating, the cartels are making a strategic business decision. They’re shifting their smuggling tactics to move substances that are far more potent, far easier to smuggle in large quantities, far more addictive, and far more lucrative than cannabis because they’re still illegal.

It’s a classic example of the “iron law of prohibition” (see Weed Between the Lines, “The iron law of prohibition,” May 12, 2022) that, as law enforcement becomes more intense, the potency of prohibited substances increases. Or, more simply: The harder the enforcement, the harder the drugs.

And the more of them. As evidenced by the simultaneous 25% increase in seized drugs, and nearly 50% decrease in cannabis seizures the very same year.

Cannabis legalization is working. Even though there are still several states upholding prohibition, and even though the federal government has yet to make any meaningful progress to decriminalize it, the black market for cannabis is withering in the U.S. An outcome that shows how legal regulation not only makes a product safer, but takes business away from some of the most dangerous criminal enterprises on the planet. An outcome that could be achieved with every street drug, if there was the right kind of political will in Washington.

Because legalization is the only way America’s never ending war on drugs will ever actually be won—the only way to truly stop those truckloads of fentanyl pills from ever entering this country, instead of trying to catch them once they’re already here.

Cannabis seizures, however, have plummeted over the last decade as more U.S. states have legalized recreational and medical use of marijuana. The 58,000 pounds of cannabis seized at the border during the first 9 months of fiscal 2022 are equivalent to what would have been seized in a typical week in 2013.

Email: wbrendza@boulderweekly.com

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