Boulder Weekly 8.6.2020

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news:

Stemming evictions is the first step to preventing homelessness, but in light of the pandemic, will it be enough?

by Emma Athena

Boulder, Colorado

news:

Despite claims to the contrary, the U.S. Postal Service remains an effective way to vote

by Angela K. Evans

adventure:

Colorado’s road cycling community has been turn upside-down by the pandemic — in good ways and bad

by Matt Cortina

buzz:

If drive-ins, outdoor screenings and virtual theaters are working, why does the propsect of cinema in the time of COVID still feel so futile?

by Michael J. Casey

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virtual events:

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beer:

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Story slam, documentary festival, Boulder International Fringe Festival, and more to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

by Boulder Weekly Staff

Themed brewpubs are alive and well in Longmont

by Michael J. Casey

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Book Excerpt: ‘I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad’ Guest Column: Boulder’s occupancy limits are not discriminatory Words: Untitled, by Michael Stephen Levinson Astrology: by Rob Brezsny Film: ‘You Never Had It: An Evening with Charles Bukowski’ captures a raconteur spirit Savage Love: Stating the obvious Food/Drink: What to try this week in Boulder County Feast: In season: Corn at Munson Farms Cannabis Corner: Arizona marijuana initiative: Past and present GOP governors take different sides

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

THANK YOU

FOR SUPPORTING OUR MISSION

FIRST PLACE: Best Gluten Free Restaurant SECOND PLACE: Best Organic Restaurant

departments 6

Eatery & Marketplace

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THIRD PLACE: Best Vegetarian Restaurant

FRESHTHYMES.COM EATERY 303 955 7988 2500 30TH ST. #101, BOULDER, CO MARKETPLACE 720 484 5969 2690 28TH ST., BOULDER, CO

AUGUST 6, 2020

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bestofboulderdeals.kostizi.com Save on local dining, entertainment, retail and wellness.

Thank you, Colorado!

Our local business has received so much community support since we reopened for regular care. We love seeing and hearing from all of you during our new normal.

Dr. Terri Oneby 303-443-4545

Let’s keep Boulder healthy and look forward to better days.

Dr. Lowell Steinberg 303-447-8470

303.449.0011

bouldervisioncenter.com 4

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AUGUST 6, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Publisher, Fran Zankowski Editor, Matt Cortina Circulation Manager, Cal Winn EDITORIAL Senior Editor, Angela K. Evans Arts and Culture Editor, Caitlin Rockett Special Editions Editor, Michael J. Casey Adventure Editor, Emma Athena Contributing Writers, Peter Alexander, Dave Anderson, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Paul Danish, Sarah Haas, Jim Hightower, Dave Kirby, John Lehndorff, Rico Moore, Amanda Moutinho, Leland Rucker, Dan Savage, Alan Sculley, Ryan Syrek, Christi Turner, Betsy Welch, Tom Winter, Gary Zeidner SALES AND MARKETING Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Sami Wainscott Advertising Coordinator, Corey Basciano Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar PRODUCTION Art Director, Susan France Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman Graphic Designer, Daisy Bauer CIRCULATION TEAM Dave Hastie, Dan Hill, George LaRoe, Jeffrey Lohrius, Elizabeth Ouslie, Rick Slama BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Regina Campanella Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

August 6, 2020 Volume XXVII, Number 51 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. © 2020 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.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Ballot initiative group sues City of Boulder

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n last week’s Boulder Weekly, Emma Athena’s “What will happen to Boulder’s 2020 initiatives?” outlined the difficult process those circulating petitions for ballot initiatives have had to go through due to the pandemic and incorrect deadlines and guidance from the City of Boulder.

On Aug. 3, one of those groups, “Bedrooms are for People,” filed a lawsuit against the City of Boulder after City Council voted 5-4 not to put their measure on the ballot, even though organizers submitted more than enough signatures before the deadline they were originally given by the City.

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“A judgment in our favor will compel the Boulder City Clerk and City Council to place our measure on the 2020 ballot once they have confirmed we met the signature thresholds outlined in the City’s guidelines. We should not be forced to fund a legal battle against our own elected representatives to ensure our constitutional right to direct democracy,” said campaign cochair Chelsea Castellano in a press release announcing the lawsuit.

You can find the first installment in Athena’s four-part series online at boulderweekly.com/news.

AUGUST 6, 2020

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From ‘I Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall of America’s Most Corrupt Police Squad’

by Baynard Woods and Brandon Soderberg

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n 2015, Baltimore had an uprisrather than discouraged. ing against police violence much As we write this, many cities conlike those occurring around the tinue to organize against police viocountry this summer. When it lence and after sending in federal law happened, we were both working enforcement to snatch people up in at the Baltimore City Paper, an Portland, Donald Trump threatens to alternative weekly send federal much like Boulder agents into other , Weekly — except cities and do the that it no longer And while they found a shoebox with same. exists. their federal $10,000 stuffed in it. They authority and The Baltimore Uprising was the intervention is sent him downstairs and sort of event that novel, their stole $2,000. They also alt-weeklies exist activities are not. to cover: A masThey are an found $15,000 in a boot sive communityextension of policalong with fifty grams of organized protest ing as it is in response to the intended to funcheroin. They took the death of one of its tion in all of our money and left the heroin. cities as this residents standing up and saying, “no excerpt from I more.” Our coverGot A Monster age focused on the shows. people in the streets — organizers, gang members who were trying to DETECTIVE MOMODU make a truce, for example — and we GONDO DIDN’T SHOW up for put the reporting together into disthe new GTTF’s first raid. patches that all assumed the voice of Detectives Jemell Rayam, Daniel the paper which was the voice, we Hersl and John Clewell got the guy hoped, of the city. dirty in his car, and Hersl and The experiences we had trying to Rayam waited on the porch while chronicle that rebellion and the police Clewell went for a warrant to blowback that followed it, was ultisearch his house. mately translated into our new book, I “Hey, if there’s any money, you Got a Monster: The Rise and Fall know, we’ll split it,” Rayam said. of America’s Most Corrupt Police Hersl agreed. It was no big deal for Squad which came out July 21. I Got either of them.

A Monster details the way a corrupt Clewell returned with Sgt. crew of cops working in a unit called Wayne Jenkins and Detectives the Gun Trace Task Force (GTTF) Hendrix, Ward, and Taylor to exeran a criminal enterprise, robbing cute the warrant. Ransacking the drug dealers, stealing and dealing house together, GTTF found weed, drugs in the aftermath of the uprising. coke, heroin, two pistols and a masCo-writing the book could only have sive rifle with banana clips. happened because of the alt-weekly — “Hey, did you get any money?’” newspapers where advocacy journalHersl asked Rayam after the search. ism, narrative storytelling, and actusee I GOT A MONSTER Page 7 ally good writing are encouraged

In Miller’s bedroom

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AUGUST 6, 2020

Boulder’s occupancy limits are not discriminatory

by Andrew Shoemaker

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ric Budd’s recent opinion families with minor children are a piece, “Boulder Needs Equal protected class because of historic Housing Access in the City discrimination by landlords refusing Charter,” (Guest Column, to rent to families for a variety of July 30, 2020), argues that reasons (e.g., a belief that children Boulder’s occuare hard on units, pancy rules are families may have “discriminatory only one wage and oppressive.” discriminated against, such earner to pay He contends that rent, large famias those based on race, remedying this lies may be of a “discrimination” certain religion religion and immigration justifies ignoring or race, etc.). unintended conseBoulder, like status are protected in the quences and placmany college Human Rights section of ing the towns, has occu“Bedrooms are for pancy rules the Boulder code, rather People” proposal designed to keep in the City housing prices than the Charter.

Charter rather lower by effecthan in the City’s tively capping the legislative code. value of a home However, scratching the surface of as a rental property (more on that the buzzwords used by Mr. Budd and later). Boulder’s occupancy rules spethe “Bedrooms” proponents reveals a cifically exclude “families” (a protectnovel view of discrimination and ed class) from these rules. Boulder’s protected classes. Their misuse of the definition of “family” is broad, term “discrimination” does a disserincluding through guardianship, fosvice to those classes which the antiter care, distant relatives and any discrimination laws are designed to committed relationship (same or protect. opposite sex), and Boulder prohibits Discrimination is the prejudicial discrimination based on sexual orientreatment of a member of a “protect- tation, gender identity or gender ed class” as defined by law. Under expression. federal, state and local housing laws, see GUEST COLUMN Page 7

Classes historically

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

I GOT A MONSTER from Page 6

“I figured, you know, it should be money in there,” Rayam said.

“But I didn’t find any.”

There was always the possibility that one of the new guys had found the cash first and not cut them in.

Even if they didn’t get any money, Jenkins’s new unit gained glory in the form of news coverage: “Guns and Drugs Seized in Southwest Baltimore Raid,” the local TV declared the next morning with a photo of all the dope and guns laid out on a table.

A few days later, Jenkins, Gondo, Rayam, Hendrix, and Ward entered Milton Miller’s row house in East Baltimore and forced him to show them where he kept his money. In Miller’s bedroom, they found a shoe box with $10,000 stuffed in it. They sent him downstairs and stole $2,000. They also found $15,000 in

a boot along with fifty grams of heroin. They took the money and left the heroin.

A few days later, Jenkins called Gondo, who was with Rayam at an auto shop in South Baltimore. The two were trying to get some additional police lights put on an unmarked car.

Jenkins told Gondo about “some fuckin’ ballers” he was up on and suggested getting together to do “some street ripping” later on.

“We over here right across from the Ravens’ stadium now trying to get these lights in,” Gondo said.

“Oh, you found somebody to do it?” Jenkins asked.

“Yeah, we did, man, but I mean, we strikin’ out,” Gondo said.

“How much they want?” Jenkins asked.

“They talkin’ like four or five

hundred,” Gondo said.

“Man, tell them bitches three hundred cash, it’s for the police, Jenkins said. “And they get a getout-of-jail-free card with my boss’s phone number.”

“Right. This is a legitimate business, though,” Gondo said.

“They saying, I think they can’t even do it, though, they talking to Rayam now, they saying they can’t do it.”

“Man, there ain’t no legitimate business anywhere,” Jenkins said.

“Right,” Gondo said dutifully.

“Lazy motherfuckers,” Jenkins said. “Tell them we about to drop a case on ’em.”

While Boulder’s occupancy rules are imperfect and certainly need adjustments (and City Council plans to review them next year), they serve the rational purpose of preserving a balance of family homes to student rentals and VRBOs. Housing demand in Boulder is high, and rental properties are lucrative. Such properties generate revenues based on the number of tenants. The more tenants that can legally be put in a unit, the greater the cash flow and the greater the property value.

Capping the number of rental tenants lowers rents and removes the incentive to convert family homes to investment properties. Because the “Bedrooms” proposal ties the number of tenants (i.e. the revenues) to the number of bedrooms, and it has no affordability requirement, the “Bedrooms” proposal creates the sig-

nificant incentive to reconfigure and convert family homes into investment properties. This decreases housing for families, increases rents, and puts local schools in jeopardy.

This tradeoff isn’t justified to protect Mr. Budd’s novel class.

Mr. Budd also contends that protecting his class of unrelated persons is so important that the “Bedrooms” proposal should be placed in the City Charter. Charter provisions are rigid (think TABOR) and cannot be finetuned by Council. Classes historically discriminated against, such as those based on race, religion and immigration status are protected in the Human Rights section of the Boulder code, rather than the Charter. By placing “Bedrooms” in the Charter Mr. Budd gives his class even greater protections.

Finally, Mr. Budd invokes the

THAT NIGHT, the GTTF got together for a series of door pops.

A little after midnight, two cars rolled down Baltimore’s historic Pennsylvania Avenue not far from where Freddie Gray was grabbed, looking for groups to roll up on and grab anybody who ran.

“A couple of nights a week, we would just go out to hot areas, we would drive around,” Hersl said.

“We drive around them areas — kind of go hunting, see what we can get into.”

A group of black men were hanging out near a corner store, some against the wall and one sitting on a bus stop bench emblazoned with Baltimore: The Greatest City in America. Jenkins whipped a manic turn and pulled up to the curb. Clewell popped the door, scattering the group, moving targets running in all directions.

Someone in a white T-shirt rushed around the corner, and Clewell went after him, but he was too fast and Clewell lost him. From the back seat of the car, Hersl saw another man dart the other way, holding his waistband like he was trying to stop a gun from slipping through his pants. So Clewell went after the man and Hersl hopped out and ran with Clewell.

When the suspect leaped off a retaining wall, a gun fell out on the ground and Clewell grabbed it.

The door pop was a new strategy for the GTTF — and it was unconstitutional. But numbers were numbers. They got three more guns that night with door pops.

Courtesy of St. Martin’s Press.

Order your copy at us.macmillan.com/ books/9781250221803.

GUEST COLUMN from Page 6

It is this aspect of the law — excluding “families” from occupancy limits — that provides Mr. Budd his hook to argue that nonfamilies (unrelated people outside of a committed relationship) are therefore the victims of housing discrimination.

Mr. Budd takes issue with the fact that an “entire class of people who are unrelated” and want to live together are treated differently than families protected under the law.

Following Mr. Budd’s logic, eight privileged, white males who are unrelated and want to rent a home together would be members of a new protected class. Are these white males really “oppressed” because of a law that tries to level the playing field for “families”? Is this “oppression” the fact that a break is being given to true victims of discrimination?

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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AUGUST 6, 2020

fact that certain Boulder policies make real estate expensive, resulting in an adverse impact on diversity in Boulder, and he suggests that eliminating occupancy rules is a good first step. However, rather than address these policies — Boulder’s height limit, blue line and growth limits — he targets the occupancy rules that attempt to balance the adverse effects of Boulder’s housing market forces.

In conclusion, “Bedrooms” has created a healthy debate in this community about occupancy limits. But let’s not falsely cloak the discussion in the language of discrimination, especially in these critical times.

Andrew Shoemaker is a Boulder attorney and former member of City Council.

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

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EMMA ATHENA

On dangerous ground

Stemming evictions is the first step to preventing homelessness, but in light of the pandemic, will it be enough?

By Emma Athena

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RUY AND people remain depenMEAGAN dent on such relief ARANGO, funds to pay rent and organizers for No Evictions Without utilities, among other Representation, are household necessities building off the like food and medinational right-tocounsel movement, cines. (It’s unclear as seeking guaranteed of press time if a new legal representation benefits package will in Boulder’s eviction court. be passed by Congress, and what it will include.)

For many who remain un- or underemployed, coupling the revival of evictions with this additional loss of income draws the prospect of homelessness closer than ever. It’s an alarming confluence of events, says Boulder City Council member Adam Swetlik, considering financial hardship is the primary reason people in the county become unhoused.

Rental assistance has already been the number-one request from Boulder County

This article starts a multi-part series analyzing how COVID-19 has changed the conversation around homelessness solutions. Reporting for this series was made possible, in part, thanks to the Solutions Journalism Network.

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he date of Aug. 11 has been looming in Ruy Arango’s mind for months. It’s an expiration date — the day when the last of the state’s emergency policies protecting Coloradans from eviction will expire. The housing-justice advocate kneads his knuckles, leans forward and says, “We are looking at an eviction crisis the likes of which this country, I don’t think, has seen yet.”

In Colorado, the end of Governor Jared Polis’ eviction moratorium and its subsequent eviction-filing extensions have coincided with a massive reduction in federal aid provided to people via the CARES Act. On July 31, the Act’s $600-a-week unemployment benefits stopped, though many AUGUST 6, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

residents to assistance organizations during the pandemic. Lawyers, politicians and social justice advocates alike are calling for a re-extension of the governor’s eviction moratorium, as preventing eviction is the most effective way to prevent homelessness. In the meantime, the network of localized community resource teams, fundraising experts, coordinated county and city services, and hard-working neighbors like Arango that’ve been keeping thousands of Boulder County residents from eviction are determined to continue their work for the foreseeable future.

Since March, the Colorado Department of Labor and Employment has recorded a total of 646,797 unemployment claims — more than 16,000 of which were filed between July 12 and 18. The state’s unemployment rate in February was 2.5%; in July it stayed above 10%, a number that disproportionately reflects more people who rent than those who own homes, says Zach Neumann, a practicing lawyer and public policy lecturer at CU-Denver’s School of Public Affairs.

Though the economy was strong at the beginning of 2020, individuals’ finances didn’t necessarily reflect it.

“The majority of Americans have less than $1,000 in savings and are not prepared to weather a multi-month crisis, and this is a multi-month crisis,” Neumann says. “You don’t have to be an economist to know [if ] you take away [someone’s] income, and there are no benefits and they are renters, their ability to stay housed evaporates really quickly.”

Evictions were already on the rise in Boulder County before the COVID crisis hit. Arango reports eviction filings have increased 27% in the past four years, adding Colorado has “some of the worst tenant protections in the country.” Princeton University’s Eviction Lab’s COVID-19 “Housing Policy Scorecard” scores the state 0.63 out of 5 — the higher the score the larger the number of protocols in place to stave off eviction.

“Without further statewide action and supportive measures to address BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

rental debt, however, Colorado could see a surge of evictions in the weeks or months following the pandemic,” the Eviction Lab reports.

Neumann first realized how serious evictions could get when, in March, he posted a message on Facebook offering to help folks navi-

thousands of people across Boulder County when the impacts of the coronavirus began manifesting. As folks have lost jobs or work hours, loved ones have fallen sick or passed away and many have struggled with child-care as they have tried to find additional income, the need for these COURTESY OF EFAA

gate rent payments and answer urgent questions “about housing, homelessness and community recovery during the spread of the coronavirus.” Within 24 hours, he’d received hundreds of messages, and in response, Neumann founded the COVID-19 Eviction Defense Fund with a handful of other lawyers. Since then, they’ve helped about 1,000 people across the state with legal information and representation. According to the Defense Fund, more than 400,000 Coloradans will soon be at risk of eviction. One report states, “This crisis is likely to see its greatest increase in August and will impact communities of color, undocumented residents and low-income families most.”

Community resource organizations already in touch with these vulnerable communities, like Emergency Family Assistance Association (EFAA) and Community Foundation Boulder County (CFBC), were swift to bring rental, utilities and food assistance to I

ANDREW resources has only “QUE” grown.

JONES Founded 102 working with food inventory years ago during the for a food bank.

Spanish Flu, quick responses are “kind of in EFAA’s DNA. It’s what we do,” says Julie Van Domelen, EFAA’s executive director. So when 3,800 phone messages came through its office in the first three months of the pandemic, EFAA’s case managers knew, for the most part, what to do.

EFAA’s main focus has been rental assistance, says Van Domelen. Over the last three months, 800 households in Boulder County have received EFAA’s help in forestalling eviction.

Seventy-one percent of those are families with kids, according to Van Domelen.

Through the “Keep Families Housed” program, now in its third year, EFAA has long been the “main provider of housing for families of kids AUGUST 6, 2020

that are homeless,” Van Domelen says.

Before COVID-19, EFAA averaged about $100,000 a month in financial assistance for families. Over the last three months, the organization has dispersed $800,000 — “$850,000 if you add utilities,” she says.

Lisa Moreno, senior program officer at CFBC, was also quick to grapple with the pandemic’s severe economic impact. It really hit home when City of Boulder employees were furloughed in March, she says.

“It made clear how interdependent all the different facets of the economy are, and then what it really means for the services that people depend on.

“This wasn’t just going to be something we were going to bounce back from quickly,” Moreno adds.

“This is going to be a big problem for a long time.”

In March, CFBC created the COVID-19 Respond Fund and began administering grants to nonprofits around the county. In the first round of grants — which totalled $650,000 between March 20 and April 22 — CFBC focused on aiding seniors, which would be the hardest-hit population, according to public health officials, then funding family resource centers like EFAA, Sister Carmen Community Center, Lyons Community Foundation and several food pantries. It also supported congregant living programs, like homeless and domestic violence shelters — “people who lived in the types of settings where there wouldn’t be enough space” to properly socially distance, Moreno says. In June, a second round of $650,000 in grants extended CFBC’s aid to focus on the health, stability and wellbeing of children and other marginalized communities.

On top of this, “There was a lot of effective advocacy in the community about recognizing people who were undocumented or mixed-immigration status families as some of the most vulnerable in the community, because of their lack of access to any of the federal [aid],” Moreno says.

To provide this financial assistance see EVICTION Page 10

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EMMA ATHENA

TENANTS IN A BOULDER rental contemplate the lack of federal financial aid and the expiration of state eviction protection measures as unemployment across the state remains high.

EVICTION from Page 9

to the community, organizations like EFAA and CFBC immediately began fundraising. “The fact of the matter is this was an all-hands-on-deck situation,” Moreno says. “And that’s what our donors did. They stepped up and they gave.” According to Moreno, 32.5% of the new money injected into the county in response to the pandemic, aside from state or federal money, came from CFBC’s COVID-19 Response Fund. CFBC is planning a third round of grants before September.

Most of EFAA’s money has come from private individual donations.

“We got a little bit of money from [CFBC], but it wasn’t going to come close to responding to what we knew the need would be,” Van Domelen says.

While donations have since slowed, as is typical in summer months, EFAA expects to sustain higher levels of financial assistance well into the fall. “It really is a great story of Boulderites just saying: Let’s make sure our friends and neighbors are not the victim,” she adds.

Even with such community support, Arango says, it will be difficult for many to stay housed in Boulder County without eviction protections and/or substantial financial aid provided by the state and federal government. A tenant might resume a job, for example, but they could still owe rent or other bills from months prior. “It’s just laying trauma on trauma on trau10

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ma,” Arango says, as evictions begin a “cascade of violent effects for the individual and the community — financial, emotional strain, homelessness that radiates out.”

Arango, and his wife, Meagan, who are renters, started their work on eviction-prevention long before the pandemic hit. In 2019 they began organizing the “No Eviction Without Representation” (NEWR) ballot initiative campaign, which proposes the City of Boulder guarantee free legal representation to individuals and families who are served a summons to eviction court. Boulder residents will vote on this measure in November.

Though NEWR is not a new concept, nor a response to a new crisis, Arango says, “I’ve been calling [the pandemic] an incredibly unhappy coincidence.” With evictions now in the news, it’s provided some urgency to the campaign, drumming up support for the initiative.

NEWR has been building off a larger, nation-wide “right to counsel” movement that started in New York City and has since expanded to major cities around the country, all trying to stem evictions. The idea is to guarantee legal representation in civil eviction cases in the same way it’s guaranteed in criminal cases, which ultimately results in fewer evictions.

Without an attorney, Arango says, people don’t know what legal rights and defenses are available. Often, people don’t know they’re even supAUGUST 6, 2020

posed to show up to court. If a tenant doesn’t show up, “the judge rules what’s called a default,” Arango explains, “and that means a landlord wins automatically. It takes all of 30 seconds.”

NEWR volunteers have been collecting their own eviction-court data for months. “We want to bear witness to what’s happening,” Meagan says.

After observing hundreds of eviction court hearings, the volunteers determined 2% of tenants in Boulder County show up to court with an attorney, compared with 88% of landlords who do.

After San Francisco implemented a right-to-counsel program in 2018, evictions dropped by 10% in 2019.

Over the last four years with a similar program, New York City has reduced evictions by 27%. “We expect we’re going to see similar numbers here in Boulder,” Arango says. Since NEWR secured its place on the November ballot, the campaign has been working with Boulder officials to “expand the scope of the program, to include things like rental assistance,” Arango says. “That will make NEWR the most comprehensive and most aggressive anti-eviction program in the country we think, and probably the best one.”

“We have to give credit where it’s due,” Meagan adds. “The City of Boulder has been trying to be proactive with helping people avoid eviction. They’ve been sending them packets about what they can do [in

the event of eviction], which begs the question: Why weren’t we doing this in the first place?”

Since the pandemic started, the City and County has ramped up their mediation services providing thirdparty help to landlords and tenants negotiating payment plans and trying to avoid legal proceedings. “Our communication services got on the ball really quickly and really shored up their systems and got ready to work very close to the people,” says Kristin Hyser, deputy director of Boulder’s Housing and Human Services.

“As we were looking towards the eviction moratorium expiring, our team worked very closely with the courts,” she explains. The mediation services are available at the courthouse to resolve potential eviction without going into an official hearing — which could prevent an eviction from going on someone’s record — but that only works if both the landlord and tenant are present.

“COVID-19 has further exposed the precarious nature of the lack of access to safe and affordable housing so many of our neighbors face in our community,” Communications Specialist Alice Kim writes via email on behalf of Housing Solutions Boulder County (HSBC). In March, HSBC established its “COVID-19 Response Center” to ensure shelters could continue to house people in a safe and healthy manner. HSBC also established the Housing Help Line

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

(303-441-1206), which provides both tenants and landlords with housing information and financial help, plus free mediation and legal services.

Plus, protections for tenants in affordable housing have been bolstered, as the Boulder County Housing Authority is committed to suspending rent increases and evictions until further notice.

While the pandemic has been largely devastating, there are silver linings. “As a result of COVID, there are now regular conversations between a variety of partners that are committed to people’s housing,” Hyser says. A monthly meeting now brings together representatives from EFAA; the City of Boulder’s housing authority, Boulder Housing Partners; the civil and legal service nonprofit Bridge to Justice; Boulder Area Rental Housing Association; individuals invested in housing justice; the district attorney and others from the County’s court system.

“We are working really hard with our partners to make sure we’re all on the same page and reinforce our commitment to keeping people housed in this unreal circumstance,” Hyser says.

Still, CFBC’s Moreno says, “Let me be really clear about the impact of this pandemic: There’s no amount of money in any service category that’s available that’s big enough to meet the [community’s] need. It’s not just housing, it’s anything.”

Housing, however, is a special nexus of sorts. Neumann, who has represented many tenants in eviction cases, says, “What you see happen to clients once they get evicted is just heartbreaking. People lose their jobs because they can’t get to work with clean clothes and on time. Their kids can’t stay in school. Their health declines. They’re moving from homeless shelters to hotels, to living in their cars, to staying with family. It just puts people in this state of ongoing transience where they no longer even get to live, really. That happening to anybody is terrible, but then you think about that happening to hundreds of thousands of people, and we’re talking about a massive human rights issue.”

In Colorado, evictions stay on a person’s record for seven years. In addition to the immediate problems an eviction can cause, having one on record can lead to future housing discrimination, Arango says. Eviction BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

prevention, therefore, is the most effective way to keep people housed not only short-term, but also longterm.

With unemployment still high and debts still accumulating, “Colorado needs to reinstate the eviction moratorium,” Neumann says.

“We should not be evicting people from their homes and making them homeless during a pandemic, period, full stop.”

While a moratorium would directly help tenants, it may not be the most holistic solution, as many point out. “It’s a challenging situation because the moratorium does protect residents, but at the same time, property owners still have to make their mortgage payments,” Hyser says, arguing for a financial support system that keeps landlords from foreclosure and potentially losing property, thus resulting in an eventual eviction anyway. “If an individual can’t pay their rent and [landlords] can’t evict them, then there’s a cost to everybody.”

According to a July ProPublica analysis of evictions before and during the pandemic, however, eviction moratoriums not only stem homelessness and mitigate community crises at large, they can also force landlords to seek new “solutions like accepting partial rent payments and connecting tenants with rental assistance programs in order to recoup some revenue, even if that means ... forgoing the right to evict.”

Still, there has been no indication from Gov. Polis’ office that another eviction moratorium is under consideration, nor is there any sign that his eviction-filing extension mandate (requiring landlords give 30 days of notice to tenants before filing for eviction, rather than the pre-pandemic 10 days of notice) will be extended past Aug. 11.

There’s also the fact that moratoriums only address short-term issues; even with legal delays, most tenants will eventually be responsible for all or portions of missed rental payments. Without more federal or state financial assistance in the form of rent- or mortgage-relief or direct payments to individuals and/or community resource centers, “I would say for a lot of people, it’s just delaying the inevitable,” Neumann says. “It’s not too late [but] we’re on dangerous ground.”

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t’s a busy Monday afternoon at the post office on 55th and Valmont in Boulder.

The line for the service counter stretches into the lobby as only 10 people, including clerks, are allowed inside to maintain social distancing. As one customer exits, the next is waved in, everyone shifting in the heat of the August day. One lady patiently waits her turn carrying a gift bag — the tip of what looks like a chocolate bar peeking out amid red tissue paper. When she finally makes it to the desk, she simply hands it over to the clerk: “This is for all of you to share. You all are doing so much and I know times are hard,” she says, quickly walking away as to avoid delaying paying customers any longer.

It’s a gesture of appreciation for what has long been the country’s most trusted federal agency.

In April, Pew Research Center found that 91% of Americans have a favorable view of the United States Postal Service (USPS). But in the last several weeks the USPS has been thrown into the political spotlight as the coronavirus pandemic has exposed years of funding shortfalls and President Trump has publicly questioned the agency’s ability to handle an influx of mail-in ballots ahead of the November election. At the same time, the new postmaster general, Louis DeJoy, has begun implementing a cost-cutting plan that some say may result in delays in service, while the agency maintains its financial condition will not hamper its ability to deliver.

The post office is one of the few federal agencies imbedded in the U.S. Constitution. “It’s meant to promote the public good,” says Richard R. John, professor of history and communications at Columbia University. “Its civic mandate was to provide access to information to citizenry on public affairs. That’s what the founders understood. But a lot has happened since then.”

The early post office helped spread political discourse in the burgeoning republic by delivering not only letters but newspapers as well. It helped establish the foundations of our democracy, John says, by providing universal low-cost information delivery, connecting coastal cities and remote interior communities. Seen as reliable, nonpartisan and impartial, the post office was also foundational in developing the American economy as a great deal of commerce was conducted through the agency — merchants sent money uninsured throughout the country and the world by mail. The service expanded with the railroads in the 19th century, and even further in the early 20th century when it began delivering parcels.

Democratic Senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia to ask DeJoy for an explanation in a July 28 letter.

Robert Helmig, president of the Colorado American Postal Workers Union (APWU), hasn’t heard of any major cuts in the state, except for the overtime limitations. But after years of changes that have hampered hiring and other operations, he’s worried some of the new policies will add to delays that could impede USPS’ ability to deliver essential mail and packages to the most vulnerable populations — people like military veterans awaiting medications and Social Security checks.

“You can cut, cut, cut all you want, but eventually at the end of the day, it’s still going to take a certain amount of people to move that piece of mail from point A to point B,” Helmig says. “And if you don’t have that staffing correctly, then there’s going to be delays. And then once you have delays, it only compounds.”

There’s been a major push in recent months to get emergency funding to USPS, as the agency first said it could run out of cash in September, a timeline that has now been pushed back to 2021. As part of the CARES Act, Congress approved a $10 billion loan for the agency through the Treasury Department, although federal officials have said that USPS is able to currently fund its operations without additional borrowing.

And at the beginning of June, Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine introduced the Postal Service Emergency Assistance Act, which would create a $25 billion fund for the agency, available until September 2022, dedicated to covering losses and/or additional expenses brought on by COVID-19. On July 23, Helmig says APWU members, as well as friends and family, across the country made over 28,000 calls asking their senators to support the bill.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic hit America’s shores, there has been a growing call to privatize the agency, most notably from President Trump himself, which is unusual, according to John.

There was a major push for privatization in 1840, he says, but the movement all but disappeared until recently. Libertarian billionaire Charles Koch has been leading the latest privatization efforts since the 1970s, according to a July report from In the Public Interest. But these efforts, John says, are largely outside the realm of major party politics.

“Public figures do not customarily run on privatizing the post office, especially in red states, because red states tend to have a rural constituency and the rural constituency is concerned about getting

Despite claims to the contrary, the U.S. Postal Service remains an effective way to vote

by Angela K. Evans

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The present-day iteration of the federal mail delivery service, the USPS, was created in the Reorganization Act of 1970, which established it as an independent agency meant to be self-sustaining.

At the same time, the mission of the organization was reinforced. “The Postal Service shall have as its basic function the obligation to provide postal services to bind the Nation together through the personal, educational, literary, and business correspondence of the people. It shall provide prompt, reliable, and efficient services to patrons in all areas and shall render postal services to all communities,” the Act reads.

The Act took the post office out of the federal budget, funded entirely by the revenue it generates and not tax dollars, yet Congress still controls its rates and fees for service. Whereas for more than a century before the agency ran large deficits “and no one cared,” John says, now it was expected to cover its costs.

Today, funding shortfalls threaten the solvency of the entire agency. According to the Government Accountability Office, USPS lost $78 billion between 2007 and 2019. Faced with increasing costs, including a 2006 law that mandates the prefunding of retirement for employees, the situation has only worsened in 2020 due to the coronavirus pandemic. Preliminary financial data shows a loss of $1.2 billion in April alone.

In an effort to stem some of the financial bleeding, Postmaster General DeJoy has implemented austerity measures minimizing overtime and transportation costs. There have been rumors of post office closures and service cuts as well, prompting AUGUST 6, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

their mail,” John says. “Privatization has almost never been a political issue until Trump made it one.”

More recently, Trump has called for the agency to significantly increase its prices, in some cases up to four times the current rates, which are determined

by Congress. At the same time, he’s also taken to Twitter to question the agency’s ability to deliver mail-in ballots in a timely manner, going as far as questioning whether the election should be postponed.

But that’s baseless, John says. “[The Post Office’s] reputation for trustworthiness makes it the ideal vehicle for an election that may have to be conducted in large part by mail,” he says. “It is a direct assault upon the values of the founders to undermine the legitimacy of the post office as an agent for the circulation of ballots in 2020.”

Locally, Colorado has operated a robust vote-by-mail system for years, and officials throughout the state remain confident that USPS will maintain its partnership to ensure a free and fair election come November.

“In a presidential election year, when there’s a lot of, for lack of a better phrase, noise, your County election officials are your trusted source of information,” says Pam Anderson, executive director of the Colorado County Clerks Association. In weekly meetings with partners, she says USPS managers have assured clerks around the state they don’t anticipate any operational impacts, Anderson says.

“From a national and local perspective, the Postal Service’s financial condition is not going to impact our ability to process and deliver election and political

mail,” David Rupert with USPS communications for the Western area writes in an email.

“The Postal Service has a long and successful history of working closely with Colorado election officials to help them prepare for successful primary and general elections — and this year is no different. Our mail system and processes in Colorado are all functioning and we are ready for this fall’s election.”

Despite some of the challenges facing USPS, Helmig maintains his faith in the agency’s ability to deliver election mail in a timely and secure manner. Afterall, he says, millions of people rely on USPS to safely and securely deliver everything from medications to unemployment checks to credit cards.

“I know there’s a lot of naysayers in their trust and the ability for the postal service to help facilitate the vote by mail,” Helmig says. “But a ballot is going to be just as safe and secure as any of those other things.”

Approximately 156 million people could vote in the 2020 election, a large percentage of whom are expected to vote by mail. But USPS currently delivers approximately 181.9 million pieces of first class mail in any given day and 16.5 billion annually. For many, the president’s challenges to the agency are unfounded.

“This is just the latest challenge that this remarkable institution has had to confront,” John adds. “It’s upheld its civic mandate [to provide] universal low-cost service for the entire country. No other organization does anything like what the Post Office did and does.”

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olorado voters will start receiving ballots in the mail in early October for the November election. While some states may accept ballots postmarked by Election Day, Colorado is a “ballot-in-hand” state, says Boulder County Clerk and Recorder Molly Fitzpatrick. Only ballots delivered to elections officials either through USPS or drop-off boxes by 7 p.m. on election night are counted. Fitzpatrick says there are several things voters can do to ensure their ballots are received on time. For more information visit bouldercounty.org/elections.

- Keep your voter registration up-to-date to ensure you’re mailed your ballot on time.

- If you don’t get it in the mail, pick up a ballot at a voter service, polling station or through the state’s ballot-to-go program, wherein voters request a ballot and have it delivered to their car.

- Enroll in Ballot Track, the statewide system that notifies voters when their ballots are out for delivery and then also received by voting officials.

- Return your ballot as soon as possible, either by mail (at least a week before Election Day) or at drop-off boxes throughout the county.

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COURTESY COLORADO CLASSIC

Re-route

From racing to touring to transportation, Colorado’s road cycling community has been turned upside-down by the pandemic — in good ways and bad

by Matt Cortina

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he problem is not that people don’t want to ride their bikes. In fact, these are boom times for the cycling industry.

“We are experiencing one of our best summers ever at Full Cycle,” says Spencer Burns, operations manager at the Boulder bike shop. “Consistently high sales and busy shops since May, even though stock and inventory has been really challenging. A lot of our distributors don’t have product. Or as soon as a product sells out, every other distributor dominos and sells out as well.”

Entry-level bikes are gone within days of being built. Bike tubes and water bottle holders can’t be reordered fast enough. Go for a weekend ride, or drive, and you’ll see these shiny new assets in use on Boulder County roads.

So, yes, folks are getting in the saddle and out on the road this year, sometimes in “germ pods,” as Burns says, people who ride together to limit virus exposure. But the problem for organizations that rely on many more people coming together to support road cycling — bicycle touring companies, races and advocacy groups — is that creating worthwhile communal experiences in 2020 has been rendered impossible by the pandemic.

The challenge for these groups is to figure out how to capitalize on the renewed interest in cycling, pivot operations this year and use the pandemic as an opportunity to grow the bike community and infrastructure for the future.

‘UNFORTUNATELY, COVID HAPPENED’ Organizers of the Colorado Classic — one of

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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RIDERS COMPETE the largest, and most challengin last year’s Colorado ing women’s road cycling races Classic. This year, event organizers opted in the Western Hemisphere for a virtual ride to — did all they could to hold a raise funds for profeslive event this year. sional female cyclists.

Lucy Diaz, CEO of RPM Events Group, which organizes the race, says when the reality of the pandemic hit in March, team members shifted gears to plan for a safe, COVID-defying race wherein 17 teams would compete in four stages in the high country and along the Front Range.

RPM axed spectators and expo vendors, created plans to get riders safely from the airport to lodging to the starting line, and developed health and safety guidelines for any essential personnel.

Despite all their efforts, the race participants themselves remained hesitant.

“In this group of athletes and sougneurs (massage therapists) and all that, we started to realize that there was a sense of concern,” Diaz says. “We talked to the athletes and it became apparent to us there was not 100% confidence in racing.”

“The nature of the sport,” Diaz continues, is that the majority of riders pedal, breathe and sweat in very close proximity in the peloton (a pack of riders that travel ridiculously close together to reduce drag, and which provides a strategic jumping off point for one of a team’s riders to break away). Organizers couldn’t adapt for that, lest they choose to run four days of time trials (solo, timed races), which “wouldn’t be a great model,” Diaz says. see CYCLING Page 16

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CYCLING from Page 15

So the Colorado Classic did what many events have done this year: it went online. On July 29, 85 world-class cyclists joined community members in a virtual ride. The effort raised about $45,000, to be divvied among the pro racers. That’s about $30,000 less than the total prize purse at last year’s race (though you can still donate to help meet the 2019 mark at coloradoclassic. com/zwift).

Supporting the women’s side of the sport, which has fewer races, fewer opportunities for exposure and smaller prize purses, is largely why the Colorado Classic switched to a woman-only race in 2019, after holding men’s events in its first two years in existence. By virtue of hosting only a premier women’s race, and livestreaming it, as well as providing resources to cyclist to build brands, network with other businesswomen and gain followers on social media, Diaz says the Classic is hoping to help bridge the gender divide in pro cycling.

“Some of these top-tier events in Europe, the women’s side of the event, they’re competing and they don’t have TV exposure or they don’t have livestream exposure,” Diaz says. “We’re not the answer to solving the growth of women’s cycling, but we’re trying to create a model that’s best practice. That the athletes recognize is best practice and circle this event and say they want to come back.”

The hope, and plan, is to have an event next year in order to continue growing the women’s side of the sport, but Diaz says the group is learning from this year to plan for the future.

“We want to reinvent cycling in the U.S.,” she says, “so leave it to COVID to force us to do that.”

“YOU CAN ONLY STEALTH CAMP SO MUCH” We were somewhere in Missouri or Kansas and the community center listed on our Adventure Cycling maps as a place to get a shower was closed.

Resigned to our stink, my travelling partner and I, who were halfway through the 4,200-mile TransAmerica trail, picked up our bikes to head to the city park to camp when a van swung into the empty parking lot. A woman asked us what we were doing there, we told her and she said, “Aw, come on over to my house to rinse up,” and of course we did.

It’s those little things that make a long bike tour so fruitful. But this year, anyone who hit the trails is likely to find a lot of closed community centers and other critical places for food, shelter, shower and community in the hodgepodge support network on any one of the nation’s road cycling routes.

That’s part of why Adventure Cycling, which hosts bike tours and publishes maps of several popular long-distance routes in the U.S., is “officially advising against doing distance travel” this year, says Alex Strickland, editor-inchief of the group’s Adventure Cyclist magazine.

Campgrounds along Adventure Cycling’s route network (and everywhere else, it seems) are closed or too crowded, and for people on multi-day tours, “you can only stealth camp so much,” Strickland says.

It’s hard to estimate how many fewer people are taking long bike trips this year, Strickland says, but anecdotally, the group gets about 1,200 visitors per year at its Missoula, Montana, headquarters, which intersects with several routes, and this year there’s maybe been 50 people stop by — though there’s been a “noticeable uptick” in recent weeks.

The pandemic’s impact on potential cyclists and the communities they would have visited on Adventure Cycling routes goes two ways, Strickland says.

There’s a prime example of this in two towns along the Great Divide Trail, which runs from Jasper, British Columbia, through Colorado, all the way to the Mexican border in New Mexico. The town of Ovando, Montana, has embraced its place along the trail and transformed into a haven for riders, so much so that they’ve won hospitality awards. But with fewer people coming through, they’ve taken a financial hit this year.

Meanwhile, some 700 miles south in Colorado, there’s the Brush Mountain Lodge, which sits at a critical juncture on the trail — it’s one of the only service stops along the route for 100 miles in either direction. But the lodge decided to close this year, creating challenges for any rider who still took I

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

on the route.

“That decision really impacts riders,” Strickland says. “All of a sudden you look at this 200-mile service gap created by the lodge not being open.”

And unless you’ve had your head in a pannier for the last six months, you know that the future is uncertain for businesses across the country, particularly those in hospitality. Strickland says he’s “continually shocked” by the amount of information Adventure Cycling receives from riders about closed businesses and service stations along routes — so future riders won’t be left in the lurch out on the trail.

Strickland says map sales are steady, which he attributes to people planning adventures for next year or hoping to do some couch vacationing. The pandemic has allowed the organization to adjust some internal processes but given that folks may not be willing to take long trips even next year, the group is starting to plan shorter trips so people can “embark on bike travel and experience what that is and how it can be part of your life.”

“A LOCAL AND NATIONAL PHENOMENON” Jack Todd, director of communications for Bicycle Colorado, a bicycling advocacy group, confirms there have been a lot more people out cycling at the local level, even if that involves having to wear a mask while riding.

“I don’t think it’s anybody’s favorite thing, but it’s a small sacrifice to make,” he says.

Todd says the group has, multiple times, been asked if bike tires can carry COVID (“The short answer is there’s no evidence that that’s the case,” he says, in case you were wondering).

But the increase in ridership, combined with a greater amount of telecommuting, presents an opportunity to expand bikeways and get more people on two wheels.

“The one thing the pandemic has really shown, especially in the early days, is just how much space is taken up by cars, and how much space streets take up in our cities,” Todd says. “It has encouraged people in a way to rethink how we use that space and who streets are really for — are they for cars or for moving people?”

Bicycle Colorado has helped pass bike-friendly legislation, but when it comes to expanding bike lanes, Todd knows as well as anyone that it can be a struggle. Take the right-sizing of Folsom Street in Boulder several years ago; though there were some flaws in the planning and execution of it, the community reaction did nothing to push bike culture forward.

“The street changed pretty dramatically and it was like it was the end of the world almost,” Todd says. “I think with enough time, people see how these changes can benefit them. Even if you’re not biking, it benefits you as a driver.

Right now we do have time to show that these things work and this is an opportunity.”

Todd points to the City of Oakland as a good example of how to boldly claim streets for bicycles — in light of the pandemic, the City opened 74 miles of roadways for cyclists and pedestrians, “far and away the most in any U.S. city for people walking and biking,” Todd says.

Cycling may not be the first avenue you’d think of to advance social justice issues, but advancing that cause has been a tenet of Bicycle Colorado’s platform for a while. This moment in history has allowed the group to rethink what it means to provide “safe streets” and how to connect those in lowerincome communities to bikeways and bike culture.

“The murders of George Floyd and Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and Elijah McClain, they’ve really shown us at Bicycle Colorado the definition we’ve used for safe streets haven’t been safe for everybody,” Todd says. “I think we have been doing a lot of reflecting on how we can work for more people even while focusing on bicyclists and bike networks, and making sure we’re not doing anything to put others at risk.”

And the payoff for expanding bike ridership across all communities and making cities more bike-friendly is huge, Todd says.

“We’ve heard some really positive feedback, ‘I’ve never met these neighbors before,’ and ‘I’ve never seen my community in this way,’” he says.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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AUGUST 6, 2020

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See you at the movies?

If drive-ins, outdoor screenings and virtual theaters are working, why does the prospect of cinema in the time of COVID still feel futile?

Story and photos

by Michael J. Casey

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t’s Tuesday at 3 p.m. outside the Century Theater in Boulder’s Twenty Ninth Street Mall, and it’s quiet. Too quiet.

You’ll have to excuse the cliché, but it fits. This courtyard should be filled with voices of patrons coming and going, taking advantage of Discount Day and talking about movies: What they saw, what they plan to see next and what movie the New York Times recommended as the must-see for the season.

But it’s not. It’s desolate. Only a handmade sign taped to the door directing deliveries to the back suggests that a person might have business here. Those doors, caked in dirt and grime, were locked almost five months ago and haven’t opened since. “Now Playing” movie posters for Parasite, Onward, The Way Back, Greed and a dozen more — their text faded, their colors bleached by daily blasts of sunshine — flank the doors like ghostly remnants. Ten yards back, two escalators endlessly grind on, the mechanical whine of metal on metal as they transport no one and nothing while the wind whistles eerily through the hollow parking garage. Standing here feels like you’ve walked into the opening of Once Upon a Time in the West, but with fewer horses.

“We’re doing good right now,” Kathy Beeck says. “It’s just everything in the future is a big question mark.”

Beeck, who produces the Boulder International Film Festival (BIFF) with her sister Robin, is excited. And with good reason: Back in June, they launched the BIFF Drive-In at the Boulder Municipal Airport. With a 40-foot screen and enough space for 160 cars, BIFF’s drive-in features live music alongside a movie every Saturday night, from now

AUGUST 6, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

S OUTHWEST A CUPUNCTURE C OLLEGE B OULDER

through September. Maybe longer if the weather stays nice.

“We just thought it would be frickin’ fun,” Beeck says, explaining that the a-ha moment happened in April over a Zoom happy hour. At some point in the conversation, someone said, “drive-in.”

“And we all went: ‘Drive-in,’” Beeck says. “You know what we ought to do?

We oughta start a drive-in! ... How hard can it be?”

Harder than you think.

Getting the movies and booking the acts was one piece, that they knew, but wrangling the City of Boulder, the Boulder Public Health Department, finding the location, figuring out the logistics of moving cars in and out of the airport took longer than they anticipated. Beeck says they wanted to get the drive-in up and running in May but had to settle for June 20 for their first screening. It’s been a smashing success since.

BIFF’s drive-in isn’t the only place in town where you can watch a movie through your front windshield: The Dairy Arts Center also hosts a weekly drive-in, though it takes place in the parking lot behind the center, projected on the building’s white walls, with movies screening Friday and Saturday nights.

“And we sell out every show,” Glenn Webb says.

“But, we only have 20 parking spots.”

Webb is the programmer of the Dairy’s Boedecker Theater, which has been closed since March 16.

Furloughs quickly followed, but Webb stayed with the Dairy, volunteering his time to set up the Boe’s virtual theater and drive-in, even producing a onehour Zoom-broadcasted fundraiser, featuring live performers, a single technician and Webb as master of ceremonies.

“It felt like I was producing a Jerry Lewis telethon,” Webb says chuckling.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

The fundraiser worked; enough to get the Boe to January. And we should be able to see movies in a theater by January, shouldn’t we?

Webb hopes so: The drive-in is fun, but it can’t create the same experience of sitting in a theater, a community in the dark, “all breathing the same air.”

“It’s kind of scary,” Kait Edwards, general manager of The Lyric in Fort Collins, says. “We’re lucky that we have our outdoor theater.”

As of this writing, The Lyric is the only Front Range cinema doing in-house screenings.

They also have an outdoor theater, which allows for more patrons. Inside, The Lyric has three houses, two with 64 seats and one with 220. Under the current capacity restrictions, that limits The Lyric to 13, 13 and 50, respectively.

Outside, they can have 80 people, and as Edwards says, the outdoor theater is the draw. Partly because Coloradans love spending time outside and partly because the movies they screen have a repertory draw, from the Harry Potter series to The Never Ending Story. Inside, you’ll find a different stripe of cinema, smaller titles like the English period drama, Summerland, and the low-budget horror movie, The Rental. Conspicuously absent are those big blockbuster titles that dominate the summer calendar. All have been postponed, some for a few months, others indefinitely.

“If we extend a couple more months of not having any titles, we’re going to get to the fall when the weather’s going to turn, and then the outdoor screen is not going to be comfortable to be in,” Edwards says.

“We’re playing it fast and loose right now.”

“In Colorado, we have the green light,” Keith Garcia, artistic director at Denver’s Sie Film Center, says. “All of us

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MOVIES from Page 19

have had the green light for a month.”

But, the Sie isn’t open, and probably won’t be for awhile. As Garcia points out, deciding when to open will be a question of “How you want to balance the cost of being open with what is available.”

Like The Lyric, the Sie has three screens, and under the current guidelines, their numbers would be 10, 50 and 50.

“So it’s not an absolute dismal number,” Garcia says. “It could, actually, turn a profit.”

But for that to happen, moviegoers would have to show up.

“I’M NOT QUITE sure people are ready yet, to see movies inside. Which I totally understand: It’s a bit scary to be in a room for two to three hours, and having to wear a mask is not the biggest appeal right now” — Kait Edwards, general manager of The Lyric

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“I’m not quite sure people are ready yet, to see movies inside,” Edwards says.

“Which I totally understand: It’s a bit scary to be in a room for two to three hours, and having to wear a mask is not the biggest appeal right now.”

Not to mention the health of staff and patrons, which continues to weigh heavily on every decision. As Webb points out, the thought of a patron coming to the Boe, contracting COVID while watching a movie and dying is “devastating.”

Then there’s the money. Talk about the coronavirus and cinema and the conversation is bound to touch on two movies: Tenet and Trolls World Tour — a Universal release that bypassed theaters all together back in April (much to the chagrin of corporate chain theaters). It was available via Video On Demand to the tune of $19.99 for a 48-hour rental.

In an alternative non-COVID world, The Lyric would have screened Trolls World Tour. The Sie Film Center would not. But they both would likely have had Tenet, the Christopher Nolan blockbuster that was supposed to open up theaters and usher the summer cinema season back on July 17. It was not to AUGUST 6, 2020

be: Tenet was delayed by Warner Bros., then dropped off the calendar altogether. As Garcia says, the moves made the entire 2020 release calendar feel “unstable.”

Tenet wasn’t the only one. Disney’s Mulan was also delayed, then taken off the calendar, as have art-house friendly fare like The French Dispatch (Fox Searchlight) and The Green Knight (A24).

In the meantime, The Lyric will rely on its outdoor screen with repertory programming while BIFF plays the hits of festivals past. The Sie, the Boe and the University of Colorado Boulder’s

But if no one knows about those options, does it matter? Kjølseth has spent the last six months doing double time to make sure IFS customers are aware of the wealth available at their fingertips with two podcasts: Cox & Kjølseth, with filmmaker Alex Cox, and Sprocket Damage, hosted by IFS’ projectionist Jason Phelps; and a postscreening Zoom chatshow, Z-Briefs, with cinema studies student Anastasia Mathews.

“Mainly, it’s a way of trying to keep our customer base somewhat engaged,” Kjølseth says.

Kjoølseth has more in the tank: Specialty screenings, programming ideas, he’s even floated the idea of operating drive-ins in the campus’s vacant parking lots or using Farrand Field as a place to show free movies to a socially distant crowd.

Kjølseth’s goal is simple: “Keep the damn thing alive,” and outdoor screenings might be the key. Edwards calls The Lyric’s outdoor screen their “saving grace,” and drive-ins are working for BIFF and the Dairy. Garcia says the Denver Film Society will soon open theirs, inside one of Red Rocks Amphitheater’s parking lots. Film on the Rocks will live on, in some capacity, at least.

International Film Series: they’ll all have to rely on virtual theaters.

“They’re kind of a placeholder,” Pablo Kjølseth, IFS programmer, says. “And I think they’re going to be around a little bit longer than the distributors had hoped for.”

IFS, which specializes in 35mm and archive prints, had its spring programming cut short when CU closed down all in-person events in March. Not long after, a group of independent distributors (Kino Lorber, Greenwich Entertainment, Oscilloscope, etc.) banded with independent theaters to present virtual theaters, which allowed patrons to rent a movie from a theater of their choice, splitting the ticket cost 50/50 between the theater and the distributor. Even better, virtual theaters require no guarantees (the money a theater has to pay upfront to book the film) from the distributor, allowing theaters like IFS to extend their programming.

While Kjølseth only has one screen on campus available to him, IFS’ virtual theater has over 40 movies to choose from, some with post-screen Q&As. “And some do OK,” Kjølseth says.

“And some don’t get too much traction at all, but we’re happy to have the options there.”

But back at Century Theater, next to these faded-out posters from five months ago, the hope for cinema seems far less optimistic. As of this writing, the theater chains have acknowledged that they can’t flip the lights on at the same time: It’s going to be state-by-state, city-by-city.

There are a handful of movies penciled in for late August and Mulan might be one of them — though most moviegoers will probably watch it as a $29.99 rental on Disney+ starting Sept. 4. And Tenet is back on the board, this time for Sept. 3, but we’ve been here before.

Webb admits we’ve passed the point of a grand reopening, and the future will most likely be a slow trickle. The Boe will have to rehire and retrain staff, build relationships with the community again, and convince people that it’s safe to enjoy a movie. It’s possible that won’t happen until a vaccine is readily available. It’s also possible that some will never see a movie in the theaters again.

The Lyric, the Sie, IFS and BIFF all face a similar future. Beeck is aware that if things don’t improve by winter, they’re looking at a socially distant 2021 festival, a prospect “that’d be tough for volunteers and attendees.”

It doesn’t just feel tough. It feels like the movies packed up and left, and might never come back.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

What to do when there’s ‘nothing’ to do...

VIRTUAL EVENTS

BOULDER INTERNATIONAL FRINGE FESTIVAL.

Aug. 12-23, boulderfringe.com.

C

OVID won’t stop the Boulder International Fringe Festival. From Aug. 12-23, the 12-day performing arts festival will present dance, music, theater, spoken word, cultural events and workshops through online venues, live streams and socially distanced live happenings in the city of Boulder. This includes Zoom performances, pre-recorded theater-style shows, live streams from different locations around the globe and some fringy experiments locally, like ‘The Lottery’: Solo performer Brett Johnson (“Poly-Theist”) will show up on the front lawn of a randomly selected audience member who lives in Boulder.

Tickets prices range from free to $15 for all Fringe touring shows, with student and senior discounts available, along with two-for-one deals and festival passes.

BOULDER’S STORY SLAM —

Family Reunion: Stories on race. 6 p.m. Sunday, Aug. 9 via Zoom, storyslamboulder.com.

B

oulder’s Story Slam is back for a night of true stories centered on the theme of race, told from the heart in living rooms across the country. This event will work a little differently: the 10 storytellers were selected in advance, and there will be no voting on the best story. The storytellers participated in a seven-week workshop in which they developed personal stories based on the theme of race through the lens of anti-racism work. The diverse group hails from all over the U.S. — the Front Range, Los Angeles, New York, North Carolina and Massachusetts — spanning six decades and several generations.

Suggested donation is $5-$20. A portion of the proceeds will go to a Black Lives Matter initiative (organization yet to be named).

COURTESY OF MIMESIS DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL

M

imesis (resemblance, receptivity, representation and the act of expression) is a filmmaker-focused, community oriented not-for-profit initiative of the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Documentary and Ethnographic Media. Its aim is create and foster a local, regional and international network of nonfiction artists, scholar and creators. Its first annual Mimesis Documentary Festival will be reimagined as an artist-focused online presentation as a response to the uncertainty surrounding the ongoing world health crisis. Exhibiting short and feature length works via a streaming link, Mimesis will also incorporate participatory and interactive events — accessible with limited enrollment. Tickets go sale Aug. 6 at mimesisfestival.org.

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BOULDER ARTS OUTDOORS.

Aug. 14-16, Gerald Stazio Softball Fields parking lot, 2445 Stazio Drive, Boulder, boulderartsoutdoors.com.

3RD LAW DANCE/THEATRE he safest place to have fun on COVID Earth is outdoors, so head to Boulder Arts Outdoors for a socially distanced drivein performance festival Aug. 14-16. The event will include music, dance, juggling and physical theater. Boulder Arts Outdoors producer Mara Driscoll presents the festival in partnership with the Boulder Symphony and the City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Department. Each evening will feature a different lineup of performances by local artists, including a world premiere by Helanius J. Wilkins, the CU Associate Dance Department Chair and two-time winner of the Kennedy Center Local Dance Commissioning Project Award; a viola performance by Boulder Symphony Executive Director and Altius Quartet member Andrew Krimm; a solo by former Airjazz member and International Jugglers Association champion Peter Davison; renowned Malian djembe drummer Abdoul Doumbia and his troupe DI DA DI; Bowregard, the winner of the 2019 Telluride Bluegrass Band Contest; and 3rd Law Dance/Theatre, recipient of the “Living Legends of Dance” award in Colorado. Tickets are $20 per vehicle and are available at eventbrite.com. All proceeds of ticket sales will go to the performing artists.

Livestream broadcasts of the performances will be available through the Boulder Arts Outdoors website.

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MIMESIS DOCUMENTARY FESTIVAL.

Aug. 12-18, mimesisfestival.org.

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BY BOULDER WEEKLY STAFF

If your organization is planning an event of any kind, please email Caitlin at crockett@boulderweekly.com.

AUGUST 6, 2020

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

HEAVY

ROTATION Five new tracks for your ears by Caitlin Rockett

“€ € € €^^%%!!!!!HEAVEN!!!!!!,” LALA LALA, BATHS Pandemic be damned, Lillie West, the Chicago-based songwriter behind Lala Lala, has been social this year, collaborating (remotely, of course) with fellow Chicagoans Grapetooth, UK post-punks Porridge Radio and now with American electropop producer Baths (Will Wiesenfeld). Leading with a gently rolling piano riff that wouldn’t be out of place on Radiohead’s ‘Amnesiac,’ this grawlix-esque titled track blends Wiesenfeld’s predilection for layering in unorthodox sounds with West’s penchant for intimate dream pop, creating a sensation that straddles the line between soothing and plaintive.

“MOODY,” BRIJEAN Brijean Murphy has long been in-demand in the indie world, providing percussion for Poolside, Toro y Moi and U.S. Girls.

Murphy teams up with multi-instrumentalist Doug Stuart to create a silky smooth blend of ’70s disco and ’90s house music as Brijean. This easy-grooving song takes a stream-of-consciousness approach to lyricism that evokes the contented meandering of a late-summer afternoon with zero plans and no worries.

“PROCESS,” SAMORA PINDERHUGHES While Samora Pinderhughes was studying at Juilliard, he met playwright Anna Deavere Smith, who shaped Pinderhughes’ vision of how film and theater could fuse with music. “Process” is theatrical in the best sense of the word, telling an intimate and emotional story of loss and grief in a conversational way. “I wrote [this song] to try and be kinder to myself,” Pinderhughes wrote on Bandcamp. “I wrote it to honor what pain really feels like, and what grace hopefully looks like.”

“BLUEBIRD,” CORY WONG, CHRIS THILE Guitarist Cory Wong’s forthcoming album, ‘Trail Songs: Dawn,’ is a more upbeat compilation than his previous release, ‘Trail Songs: Dusk.’ Banjoist Chris Thile helps liven up the new release on the first single “Bluebird,” a spry, soaring track that lives up to its namesake. Even clocking in at just under 3-and-a-half minutes, there’s still a bit of time for some expert noodling from both of these virtuosos.

“A HERO’S DEATH,” FONTAINES D.C. The rain and fog of Dublin seem to permeate the post-punk of Fontaines D.C., helping the Irish quintet craft foreboding but lush sonic landscapes. The title track off their sophomore album plays with the notion that happiness is a mindset: “Don’t give up too quick,” Grian Chatten sings, “You only get one line, you better make it stick / If we give ourselves to every breath / Then we’re all in the running for a hero’s death.” But it’s not all tongue-in-cheek; there’s sincerity in Chatten’s words, as though he’s trying to convince himself of the truth buried in those frustrating cliches we bandy about to try to soothe one another: “Sink as far down as you can be pulled up / Happiness really ain’t all about luck.” see EVENTS Page 24

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EVENTS from Page 23

art

ANGIE ENG

art

‘Earth Wear’

Collaborative public art installation highlights waste and consumption

by Caitlin Rockett

A

ngie Eng was already navigating the challenges of launching her first nonprofit, Creative Catalyzers, when the coronavirus pandemic shut Colorado down — but that was nothing compared to the obstacles she had to face to kick off her collaborative public art installation, “Earth Wear.”

The initial structure of the project — which uses waste materials to highlight over-consumption — involved working with some vulnerable groups: artists experiencing homelessness and an art instructor in her 70s.

Eng had applied for a grant from the Boulder Arts Commission to help fund the project, but COVID made that seem like a pipe dream.

“If you think about the logistics, there’s no way it could happen,” Eng says. “I thought I wouldn’t get the grant.” see EVENTS Page 25

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

ANGIE ENG

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EVENTS from Page 24

But she did receive the funding, and back to the ON THE BILL: “Earth Wear,” a drawing board she went. collaborative comThe original idea involved Eng teaching homemunity art project less artists how to weave strips cut from plastic led by Angie Eng. tote bags that would wrap around trees — like the Iris and 26th streets, Aug. 10-Aug. 31, urban street art of “yarn bombing,” but with waste creativecatalyzers. materials. With no way to regularly connect with the org. artists experiencing homelessness during lockdown, Eng found a new group of artists at Mother House, a shelter for pregnant people.

Using Zoom tutorials to teach her new collaborators how to weave, Eng has been able to create wraps for several trees at the northwest corner of Iris and 26th streets in North Boulder. Installation begins on Aug. 8, and the public can see the finished product on Aug. 10.

“The idea is that the project wasn’t just art for art’s sake, but teaching sustainability in a subtle way so people look at the abundance of things they consume,” Eng says.

The second phase of “Earth Wear” will be on view at Boulder Central Park from May to July 2021. Eng hopes to reengage with artists experiencing homelessness to work on this extended component, which will use recycled electronics and other plastic waste. Artistic engineer Bryan Constanza will assist in the design and development of an interactive sound component of the Central Park exhibition.

For now, the north Boulder exhibit will be on display for three weeks.

“It’s ephemeral,” Eng says. “Anything that’s public art is pretty ephemeral. It will fall apart with wind, snow, rain, vandalization ... that’s something that has to be accepted as part of the project and with most things in life.”

STAY CONNECTED Check us out on Facebook and Twitter for events, local news, and ticket giveaways. facebook.com/boulderweeklymedia twitter.com/boulderweekly

boulderweekly.com BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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‘A SEASCAPE, SHIPPING BY MOONLIGHT’ BY CLAUDE MONET VIA WIKIMEDIA COMMONS

Untitled

by Michael Stephen Levinson Night watch on the ship’s prow, The stars are out in disorder Every thing ever been seen By naked eye / Is out tonight.

Michael Stephen Levinson is an unknown.

Boulder Weekly accepts poetry and flash fiction submissions of 450 words/35 lines or fewer and accompanied by a one-sentence bio of the author.

Send to: poetry@boulderweekly.com

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BOULDER WEEKLY

seems to be the messy congestion that has accumulated over time in your links to sources that usually serve you pretty well.

So if you’ll simply disconnect for a while, I’m betting that clarity and grace will be restored when you reconnect.

BY ROB BREZSNY ARIES

LIBRA

Roots & Bones, Stephanie Rose Bird reports that among early African Americans, there were specialists who spoke the language of trees. These patient magicians developed intimate relationships with individual trees, learning their moods and rhythms, and even exchanging non-verbal information with them. Trees imparted wisdom about herbal cures, weather patterns and ecologically sound strategies. Until recently, many scientists might have dismissed this lore as delusion.

But in his 2016 book The Hidden Life of Trees, forester Peter Wohlleben offers evidence that trees have social lives and do indeed have the power to converse. I’ve always said that you Aries folks have great potential to conduct meaningful dialogs with animals and trees.

And now happens to be a perfect time for you to seek such invigorating pleasures.

your tricks for later? If so, later has arrived. Have you been postponing flourishes and climaxes until the time was right? If so, the coming days will be as right a time as there can be. Have you been waiting and waiting for the perfect moment before making use of favors that life owes you and promises that were made to you? If so, the perfect moment has arrived.

Have you been wondering when you would get a ripe opportunity to express and highlight the most interesting truths about yourself? If so, that opportunity is available.

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: In her book Sticks, Stones,

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: Author Joanne Harris writes, “The

right circumstances sometimes happen of their own accord, slyly, without fanfare, without warning. The magic of everyday things.” I think that’s an apt oracle for you to embrace during the coming weeks. In my opinion, life will be conspiring to make you feel at home in the world. You will have an excellent opportunity to get your personal rhythm into close alignment with the rhythm of creation. And so you may achieve a version of what mythologist Joseph Campbell called “the goal of life”: “to make your heartbeat match the beat of the universe, to match your nature with Nature.”

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: Author Gloria Anzaldúa writes,

“I am an act of kneading, of uniting and joining.” She adds that in this process, she has become “a creature that questions the definitions of light and dark and gives them new meanings.” I would love for you to engage in similar work right now, Gemini. Life will be on your side — bringing you lucky breaks and stellar insights — if you undertake the heroic work of reformulating the meanings of “light” and “dark” — and then reshaping the way you embody those primal forces.

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Have you been saving any of

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: “I learned to make my mind

large, as the universe is large, so that there is room for paradoxes,” writes Scorpio author Maxine Hong Kingston. That would be an excellent task for you to work on in the coming weeks. Here are your formulas for success: 1) The more you expand your imagination, the better you’ll understand the big picture of your present situation — and the more progress you will make toward creating the most interesting possible future. 2) The more comfortable you are about dwelling in the midst of paradoxes, the more likely it is that you will generate vigorous decisions that serve both your own needs and the needs of your allies.

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: “Some people will never like

you because your spirit irritates their demons,” says actor and director Denzel Washington. “When you shine bright, some won’t enjoy the shadow you cast,” says rapper and activist Talib Kweli. You may have to deal with reactions like those in the coming weeks, Sagittarius. If you do, I suggest that you don’t take it personally. Your job is to be your radiant, generous self — and not worry about whether anyone has the personal power necessary to handle your radiant, generous self. The good news is that I suspect you will stimulate plenty of positive responses that will more than counterbalance the challenging ones.

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: Capricorn occultist Peter J. Carroll tells

LEO

AQUARIUS

to be innocent and curious and blank and receptive.

So many tasks require us to be knowledgeable and self-assured and forceful and in control. But according to my astrological analysis, the coming weeks will be a time when you will benefit from the former state of mind: cultivating what Zen Buddhists call “begin-

Bazoule, Burkina Faso regard the local crocodiles as sacred. They live and work amid the 100+ creatures, coexisting peacefully. Kids play within a few feet of them, never worrying about safety. I’d love to see you come to similar arrangements with untamed influences and strong characters in your own life, Aquarius.

You don’t necessarily have to treat them as sacred, but I do encourage you to increase your empathy and respect for them.

JULY 23-AUG. 22: At times in our lives, it’s impractical

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: The people who live in the town of

mind of a novice. The Koreans call it the eee mok oh? approach, translated as “What is this?” Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield defines it as the “don’t-know mind.” During this upcoming phase, I invite you to enjoy the feeling of being at peace with all that’s mysterious and beyond your understanding.

PISCES

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: “Almost everything will work

again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.” Author Anne Lamott wrote that, and now I’m conveying it to you — just in time for the UnplugYourself Phase of your astrological cycle. Any glitches or snafus you may be dealing with right now aren’t as serious as you might imagine. The biggest problem

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

Now Offering:

SAGITTARIUS

important things in life, as important as food or drink,” wrote Cancerian author Irving Stone. I would love for you to heed that counsel, my fellow Crabs. What he says is always true, but it will be extraordinarily meaningful for you to take to heart during the coming weeks. Here’s how you could begin: Make a list of seven experiences that bring you joy, bliss, delight, fun, amusement and gratification. Then make a vow — even write an oath on a piece of paper — to increase the frequency and intensity of those experiences.

JUNE 21-JULY 22: “Pleasure is one of the most

All credit cards accepted No text messages

SCORPIO

us, “Some have sought to avoid suffering by avoiding desire. Thus they have only small desires and small sufferings.” In all of the zodiac, you Capricorns are among the least likely to be like that. One of your potential strengths is the inclination to cultivate robust desires that are rooted in a quest for rich experience.

Yes, that sometimes means you must deal with more strenuous ordeals than other people. But I think it’s a wise trade-off. In any case, my dear, you’re now in a phase of your cycle when you should take inventory of your yearnings. If you find there are some that are too timid or meager, I invite you to either drop them or pump them up.

CANCER

Call 720.253.4710

For more information: 720-333-7978

“The Boulder Mountainbike Alliance ran ads recently in the Boulder Weekly to promote our annual Membership Party and Colorado Gives Day. The campaign was a huge success and BMA raised $34,320 - all going towards improving Boulder County’s trail system! The Boulder Weekly ads led to additional awareness of BMA and played an important part in this extraordinary fundraising campaign. Thanks Boulder Weekly!”

Wendy Sweet President, Board of Directors Boulder Mountainbike Alliance

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: Your body naturally produces at

least one quart of mucus every day. You might not be aware of it, because much of it glides down your throat. Although you may regard this snot as gross, it’s quite healthy. It contains antibodies and enzymes that kill harmful bacteria and viruses. I propose we regard mucus as your prime metaphor in the coming weeks. Be on the alert for influences and ideas that might empower you even if they’re less than beautiful and pleasing. Make connections with helpful influences even if they’re not sublimely attractive.

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KINO LORBER

AMERICAN BOY ‘You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski’ captures a raconteur spirit

by Michael J. Casey

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oft-spoken and even, Charles Bukowski sounds nothing like his face looks. Or like his prose reads. In his introduction to the 1979 edition of John Fante’s Ask the Dust, Bukowski recounts his early days of living in Los Angeles, drinking wine, and reading his way through the L.A. Public Library — mathematics, philosophy, surgery, whatever. And literature, piles of the stuff, frustratingly digging through mountains of mediocre prose. “Why didn’t anybody scream out?”

Bukowski wrote. Then he found Fante and heard the cry.

No doubt a similar scene has played out a hundred times more with a reader asking the same and finding Bukowski. Either in his poetry or his prose.

There is plenty of both.

Born Aug. 16, 1920, in Germany, Bukowski didn’t start seriously writing until he was 50 (his first novel, Post Office, was published in 1971), but quickly became the “poet laureate of L.A. lowlife,” as the Los Angeles Times put it. Fame, in a manner of speaking, followed, from public readings to T.V. and radio interviews. And on Jan. 10, 1981, Italian journalist Silvia Bizio came calling at Bukowski’s San Pedro home with a camera crew in tow. And now, almost 40 years later, you can eavesdrop on that evening.

You Never Had It: An Evening with Bukowski is an engaging piece of work. The documentary opens with Bizio recounting to director Matteo Borgardt’s camera her one-time meeting with the writer. Next to her: videotapes the crew shot over the course of one long night and more bottles of wine than you can count.

Behind her: the poster of the movie, this movie. It pre-

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miered at the 2016 Venice ON THE BILL: ‘You Never Had It: Film Festival before moving An Evening with on to the 2017 Slamdance Bukowski’ is available Film Festival and then falling on CU-Boulder off into obscurity. Now it’s International FIlm Series virtual theaters back, and Bizio is providing starting Aug. 7. an intro to another intro, this one filmed five or so years ago, a frame within a frame.

Then comes Bukowski, and the doc takes flight. His face pockmarked, his hair stringy and slicked back. He drinks, constantly, and smokes incessantly. He rattles off stories with ease and professes his piggish views on sex without apology. He shows the crew around his home, plays with his cats and drinks more wine.

Borgardt peppers this interview with contemporary footage of Los Angeles, grainy and faded: The sun setting over the ocean, buskers on Venice Beach, bicyclists on the Santa Monica boardwalk, the charcoal sidewalks of Hollywood Boulevard, homeless tent cities, palm trees and on and on. Mostly, it feels phony and forced, but some of it does capture the goldenhued wonder of the city.

You Never Had It works best when it sticks close to Bukowski. The man was a born raconteur, and at 54 brisk minutes, the doc leaves you wanting more.

Thankfully, there’s plenty of Bukowski to discover — 65 books, but who’s counting? If he were alive today, he would have been 100. But there’s no way Bukowski could have made it that long. Bukowski died on March 9, 1994, in San Pedro Peninsula Hospital from leukemia. He was 73.

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

BY DAN SAVAGE Dear Dan: I’m a gay guy who’s involved with a guy I met a few months before COVID-19 took off. He’s a great guy, smart, funny, hot, healthy and easy to be around. It started as a hookup but we have chemistry on several levels and, without either of us having to say it, we started seeing each other regularly. We both live alone and decided to be exclusive due to the pandemic. I honestly don’t know what we’re doing here. It’s some combination of friends, fuck buddies, and married couple all at the same time.

I wanted to just keep a good thing going but he just threw me a curve ball that I need help figuring out how to handle.

Out of the blue he told me he held back telling me about his foot fetish. He says he’s had very bad experiences with guys who weren’t into it. He’s been keeping it to himself and looking at stuff online. I’m pretty vanilla and not into it, but I know kinks are a thing for a lot of guys and I’m willing to help out a good guy. I’m a longtime reader of yours, Dan, and being GGG is important to me. So I asked him to tell me what that means and what he wants to do.

He wants to massage, wash and kiss my feet and suck my toes. Ok, that’s not hot to me, but it’s probably doable once in a while. He thankfully doesn’t need me to do anything with his feet.

But there was more. I can’t believe I’m writing this: He asked if I would let him paint my toenails sometimes! WTF? He could barely say it and looked kind of sick after he did. We’re both conventional cis men. Neither of us are into fem stuff. He claimed it’s not about making me femme.

He says it’s just a hot thing for him. I know there’s no explanation for why people have kinks but do you have any ideas what this is about? I didn’t respond at all and we haven’t talked about it since. I’m not proud of that. I’m freaked out by this and not sure what to make of it. I don’t want to ask him directly if this is the price of admission because that seems too big a price to pay and I really don’t want it to be his price.

—Freaked Out Over Terrific Person’s Erotic Revelation Vibe Dear FOOTPERV: From your panicked response, FOOTPERV, you’d think this poor guy wanted to cut your toes off and masturbate while you bled out. Dude.

He just wants to paint your toenails — as prices go, that’s a very small price to pay for smart, funny and hot.

Yeah, yeah: you’re both conventionally cis and presumably conventionally masculine. Since we’ll never know what caused BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

him to have this particular kink — kinks really are mysteries — let’s just run with that: He thinks this is hot — or his dick thinks this is hot — because guys like you aren’t supposed to have painted toenails and guys like him aren’t supposed to paint toenails, FOOTPERV, and this small transgression against gender norms makes his dick hard because it does. While it’s not always the case with all kinks, in this instance the most obvious explanation is the likeliest explanation. Moving on…

You say he’s a great guy, you say you enjoy being with him, and you say you’re a longtime reader. So you had to know that I was gonna say this: buy some fucking nail polish already and leave it on the nightstand where he can see it and let him paint your fucking toenails.

And if you really hate it, FOOTPERV, if it freaks you out to have polished toenails — or if your masculinity is really so fragile it shatters under the weight of toenail polish — then you don’t have to do it again.

But I also gotta say… as off-the-wall sexual requests go… this is a small ask. If you were claustrophobic and your boyfriend wanted to mummify you, FOOTPERV, or if he wanted to use you as a urinal and you weren’t into piss, I would totally give you a pass. Some sexual requests are big asks and the third “G” in GGG (“good, giving and game”) has always been qualified: “game for anything — within reason.”

Some sexual requests are huge asks, some prices of admission are too steep, and some desires can only be accommodated by people who share them. But this request — what your COVID-19 spouse wants to do to you — is a small ask and a small price, FOOTPERV, in no way comparable to being turned into a mummy or used as a urinal. So smoke a little pot, put your feet on the nice man’s lap, and try to take pleasure in the pleasure you’re giving.

If I sound a little impatient, FOOTPERV, I apologize. We live in a deeply sex- and kink-negative culture and our first reaction when a partner discloses a kink is often a knee-jerk negative reaction to the idea of kinks at all. In the moment we can fail to distinguish between the big ask/steep price and the small ask/ small price. And I hope you can see the compliment this great, smart, funny, hot guy was paying you when he asked. He felt safe enough to share something with you that other guys have judged and shamed him for. Take the compliment, buy the nail polish, pay the price.

Dear Dan: I am a 37-year-old female who, almost three years ago got out of a six-year toxic, violent relationship with a man I believe I loved. After I left him for I

good my life started to improve in so many ways. However, it seems that my once very healthy sexual desires have died.

Ever since we broke up I haven’t felt any sexual needs or attraction towards anybody. I honestly think there’s something wrong with me. I can’t even picture myself having intimacy again. A year ago, I went out on a couple of dates with a man younger than me, he was cute and very interested in me but I just didn’t feel the connection. I really don’t know what to make of this situation. Any advice is profoundly appreciated.

—Just Another Gal Dear JAG: Could it be a coincidence?

Besides ridding yourself of a toxic and abusive ex — and that’s harder than people who haven’t been in an abusive relationship often realize and I’m so glad you got away from him — did something else happen three years ago that could’ve tanked your libido, JAG? Did you go on meds at the time for depression or anxiety? Could an undiagnosed medical condition that came on at roughly the same time create a libido-tanking hormonal imbalance? Did you go on a new form of birth control in anticipation of the sex you’d soon be having with other, better, nicer, hotter, kinder men?

If nothing else is going on — if you aren’t on meds for depression or anxiety, if you’ve had your hormone levels checked and they’re normal, if a new form of birth control isn’t cratering your libido — then the most obvious and likeliest answer is probably the correct one: three years after getting out of an abusive relationship, JAG, you’re still reeling from the trauma.

And the best advice is also the obvious advice: find a sex-positive therapist or counselor who can help you work through your trauma and reclaim your sexuality.

Even if you were to get your hormone levels checked or adjust your psych meds or switch to a new birth control method, I would still recommend seeing a counselor or therapist.

And even if the thought of being intimate with others causes you stress and makes you anxious, JAG, you can still explore solo sex. You don’t have to wait for the right hot young man to come along in order to reconnect with your sexuality. You can read or write some erotica, you can splurge on an expensive sex toy (have you seen the new clit-sucking vibrators?), you can watch or create porn. Really enjoying yourself may be the first step toward enjoying others again.

This week on the Savage Lovecast, Mistress Velvet schools us all: savagelovecast.com.

Send questions to mail@savagelove. net, follow Dan on Twitter @fakedansavage and visit ITMFA.org.

AUGUST 6, 2020

Adam Sloat Broker/Owner

Your Boulder Real Estate Expert and Music Guy

ALRIGHT ADAM, WHAT MAKES YOU UNIQUE AS A REALTOR? Question: Okay Adam, Realtor man, there are a ton of real estate agents around, I know 3 myself, so why should I hire you?

Answer: Well in that case, you should consider interviewing us all!

Seriously, see who feels like the best fit for you – real estate is a journey and can be quite the involved experience. You want someone you actually like and connect with, someone you feel will represent you best, someone you feel total trust with but that you can also be honest with (and they with you). Why should you hire me?

Well, I’m as unique as the next agent, but I bring strengths like negotiating skills, thinking outside the box, being detailed oriented and a killer communicator that you can trust and depend on. My mom also says I’m a really good guy!

720-466-8212 adam@adamsloat.com www.westwaterrealty.com I

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Once Again Serving Up The Food You Crave

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IL PASTAIO. 3075 Arapahoe Ave., Boulder, 303-447-9572, ilpastaioboulder.com

Eggplant parm is the quintessential comfort food — hot, saucy, cheesy, savory; what more could you ask of an inanimate object? The folks at Il Pastaio have gotten classic ItalianAmerican entrées like the eggplant parm down pat, and their menu of handmade pasta and sauces are the perfect side. We appreciate Il Pastaio’s clean eggplant parm preparation — no soggy breading, lightly charred mozzarella and bright marinara sauce with a whopping basil leaf.

Served with a crusty dinner roll made for breaking and picking up sauce, it’s a hard-to-beat dish that will, rightfully, have you going back to Il Pastaio for more.

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1 Drink this: Liquid Mechanics Brewing Co.’s Hopacity Both Coast IPA Founded in 2011, back when India pale ales fell along rigorous party lines, IPA Day is a celebration of craft beer’s reigning beer style. Nine years later and still celebrated on the first Thursday in August, IPA Day is going strong with more interpretations of the style than ever before. From West Coast (piney, bitter and bright) to New England (juicy, pillowy and hazy), and everything in between.

That’s where Lafayette’s Liquid Mechanics Brewing Co.’s Hopacity Both Coast IPA comes in. Melding the best of both worlds, Hopacity pours a hazy tangerine with a loose, rocky head of sticky lacing. The nose is predominantly bright citrus with a touch of stone fruit, while the mouth is creamy and saturated with hops — probably Citra and Centennial. The bitterness is moderate, but present, and keeps the finish just this side of treacle. It’s one to drink in twos and threes; find it on tap at the Lafayette brewery or in cans practically everywhere.

BOULDER WEEKLY

TRY THIS WEEK: Eggplant Parmigiana @ Il Pastaio

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Goat milk caramel? Yes, please Amanda Adare created her first caramel sauce in 2018 — she had tried another goat milk variety and thought she could do better. So the owner of Table Mountain Farm, a 12-acre family farm outside Boulder, worked in her kitchen using milk from her own goat herds until she created a vanilla bean caramel sauce that she dispensed as gifts. Now, after moving her operation into a commercial facility and sourcing milk from a grade-A producer, she’s bringing those gifts to us with a line of goat milk caramel sauces in vanilla bean, cinnamon vanilla, salted dark chocolate and whiskey varieties. Visit tablemountainfarm.com to find out how to get some.

AUGUST 6, 2020

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High end quality meats Catering also available

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BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

MICHAEL J. CASEY

Tour de brew: Outworld Brewing

Currently, Outworld has 10 brews on tap, six under its Archetype division (“Beers brewed true to style featuring classic elements”), and four under Voyager (“Beers that venture beyond the classic elements of a given style”).

Start with the Archetypes, particularly Broken Earth, a sticke alt. Sticke (pronounced SCHTICK-uh) is German for “secret” or generous. As in the brewer was generous with the ingredients. Outworld’s version has a nice chocolate brown color, a whiff of brown sugar, and a caramel flavor.

There’s a touch of roasted malt and some hop bitterness to balance out the sweetness, but the real beauty is in the MICHAEL J. CASEY mouthfeel — light and playful. Considering it weighs in at 7% alcohol by volume, it’s somewhat dangerous as it’s the kind of beer you can suck down like Coca-Cola.

There’s nothing light or playful about Planetary Devastation, a Scotch wee heavy, or Stellaris, a Belgian tripel; both come out of the glass swinging.

The former is malt heavy with notes of nutty toffee, coffee roast and dollops of rich honey. It goes pretty well with salty fare but would go better with a roaring campfire. The tripel, on the other hand, is a strong golden ale with a pronounced nose of hoppy lemon and pine. Sip it with a pretzel, and grainy mustard and let harmony ensue.

But if those three, and Black is Beautiful (see sidebar) are a bit bold for your liking, take solace in its German Kölsch, Shaw’s Last Stand: light and fruity and all-around thirst-quenching. It’ll mitigate the sad, summer sting of a hot Sunday afternoon. But when the weather turns, come back for that Scotch wee heavy, it’ll be waiting.

Themed brewpubs are alive and well in Longmont

by Michael J. Casey

Y

ou’d be forgiven if you happened to cruise past Outworld Brewing’s gray stone storefront and figured there was nothing special inside. Located on Vista View Drive in a small strip mall next to an archery store, there’s not a whole lot from the outside beckoning you in beyond a logo on the door and the prospect of beer inside.

But go inside you must, and the bland storefront immediately gives way to silvers and coppers, lines of metal railings swooping this way and that, oversized curved frames closing off dining booths, and décor that could be described as retro-futurist. It’s like walking onto the set of a 1960s scifi TV show.

But you probably gathered that from the name, didn’t you? Co-creators Jeremy Williams and Nicole Elgh’s large brewpub, Outworld Brewing, is aptly named. They opened for business on Feb. 28, 2020, coincidentally, a stone’s throw away from the car-themed brewpub, Collision Brewing Company. Both are new to the scene, located on the I-25 side of CO-119, and are keeping themed drinking and dining alive and well.

And dine you should; the dishes are filling and satisfying.

Outworld gets their money’s worth out of the fryer — the frites are outstanding — and most items come with a sauce or two to dip or dunk. It all plays well with the lineup of brews — a mixture of European-inspired ales and lagers, with a couple of American fixtures tossed in for good measure.

Black is Beautiful Imperial Stout

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tarted by Weathered Souls Brewing Co. in San Antonio, Texas, Black is Beautiful is a collaborative effort to bring awareness of racial injustice to the brewing community.

Breweries around the country are participating by using Weathered Soul’s recipe, putting their twist on it and donating the beer’s proceeds to a local charity.

Longmont’s Outworld Brewing is one of the 1,000-plus breweries releasing Black is Beautiful, and its version is an imperial stout brewed with chocolate and Mandarin orange. It’s big and sweet, with a hint of roast and some nice bitter chocolate. Let it warm in the glass, and it will unlock the flavor of a chocolate-covered orange. If it wasn’t 90 degrees outside, it might even make you think of the holiday season. Outworld Brewing is donating the proceeds to YWCA of Boulder County, a nonprofit dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom and dignity for all.

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BOULDER WEEKLY

In season: Corn at Munson Farms STORY AND PHOTOS by Matt Cortina

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ure, you can get green beans, tomatoes, honey, flowers, squashes and more produce from the Munson Farms stand at the corner of Valmont and 75th in Boulder. But if you’ve stopped by in the past, it’s unlikely you left without one of two crops: pumpkins or corn.

We’ll leave the pumpkins (and the patch) at Munson Farms for a later date, because the corn those folks are producing is in-season and delicious.

On a recent visit, the farm stand had a bushel of white corn and about three bushels of Peaches and Cream sweet corn. That appropriately named variety comes with yellow and white kernels on the cob. It’s one of the sweetest varieties of corn, and the kernels were perfectly tex-

tured upon cooking — crunchy, tender and juicy.

You can get three ears of corn for $2 at the Munson Farms stand, a bargain considering the quality.

Because it’s so flavorful, you’ll be tempted to eat it on the cob (and, truly, you won’t need butter or margarine, or even salt, to boost the flavor). But strip the kernels and elevate salsas, combine and fry into fritters or macerate into chowder. Or layer it into more corn, as in corn with polenta (see below).

If you’re not used to good corn, you’ll be shocked by how much flavor one little kernel can carry.

There’s still a few weeks left in corn season, but when the crop tastes so good right now, why wait?

TO GRILL OR TO BOIL?

I grew up in a corn-boiling family.

There didn’t seem to be much reason to innovate past that — fresh New Jersey sweet corn has as much flavor as what you’ll find at Munson Farms, and when I got older, I never

thought much about preparing corn.

Until I started to buy some supermarket, off-season corn and found it severely lacked for flavor. At barbecues, of course, I’d seen people throw corn on the grill but thought it might be overkill. So I tried it, and the balance of sweet and bitter that a char on corn provides was great. Then you throw in the discovery of elote, Mexican street corn, which is grilled and adorned with cheese and spice, and well, I felt like an ignoramus.

But there’s still room in the corn world for both preparations.

Anecdotally, grilling brings more flavor but boiling makes corn juicier. I prefer the texture of boiled corn over grilled because sometimes char spots can get too dry, or a hair you forgot to pick off the cob stiffens on the grill.

With good corn, boil; lesser corn, grill. But no one’s going to fault you for fire-roasting some Munson Farms corn and turning that into a salsa.

Corn with Polenta

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hat goes better with corn than corn? Don’t answer. But the doubling up on corn flavor, with a few adornments, makes for a flavor-rich polenta you can eat as a side, top with meat or fry into fritters.

Grab some polenta — Bob’s Red Mill and the white polenta from Black Cat are pretty darn good — and cook in a two-inch-deep saucepan. You’ll want about four to five cups of water for one cup of polenta, but it’s somewhat of a guessing game. Start with four and add early if the polenta looks dry.

Bring to a low boil and then send heat down to low. Stir frequently to break up lumps in the first 10 minutes, then cover, and stir every 10 minutes until it’s congealed and silky, about 40 minutes. Toward the end of the polenta cooking time, boil the corn for eight minutes, then strip the kernels off. Fold in about two earsworth of corn into the polenta and add butter and/or olive oil. I add both, in heaping amounts, to make the polenta silky — as in, probably five tablespoons of butter and two tablespoons of olive oil. Feel free to throw in some salt and Parmesan cheese here, too. Top with black pepper, fresh herbs, some more corn and a drizzle of olive oil.

Refrigerate the polenta and it’ll solidify into a corn brick. Cut the pieces into squares for an old Central Italian preparation called polenta pasticciata, translated roughly to “messed-up polenta.” You can fry the squares and top with everything from tapenade to a meat ragù to mushrooms and sage.

Or layer the slices in a glass baking pan with, basically, lasagna ingredients — tomato sauce, mozzarella cheese, ground meat or sausage and bake at 400 degrees or so for 30 minutes.

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

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Arizona marijuana initiative: Past and present GOP governors take different sides

By Paul Danish

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s of this writing, Arizona county officials are still validating signatures on petitions to put a recreational marijuana legalization question on the state’s November ballot. Supporters turned in 420,000 names; they need 237,645. The deadline for finishing the job is Friday, Aug. 7.

But that hasn’t stopped the state from publishing a voter guide that features pro and con talking points on the initiative, submitted by the current governor and a former one — both Republicans.

Current Gov. Doug Ducey submitted con arguments. Former Governor Fife Symington submitted pro points.

According to a piece posted at Marijuana Moment, Ducey called legalizing cannabis “a bad idea based on false promises.”

“We know from states that have fully legalized marijuana that it has real consequences: more deaths on highways caused by high drivers, dramatic increases in teen drug use, and more newborns exposed to marijuana,” he said.

Voters “must constantly re-evaluate our policies in the face of new evidence,” Symington countered. “Today the evidence is overwhelmingly clear: criminalizing law-abiding citizens who choose to responsibly consume marijuana is an outdated policy that wastes precious government resources and unnecessarily restricts individual liberty,” he said. “A far more logical approach would be to respect the rights of adults to choose to consume marijuana while taxing and regulating its production and sale.”

The proposal imposes significant penalties for selling marijuana products to minors, Symington added, allows law enforcement to target drivers who demonstrate impairment, and allows employers to maintain a drug-free workplace.

“Finally, and perhaps more importantly,” he wrote, “it frees up law enforcement to deal with more serious issues that actually jeopardize public safety.”

BOULDER COUNTY’S INDEPENDENT VOICE

(Ducey’s claim that there has been a dramatic increase in pot use among teens in states that have legalized recreational marijuana is contradicted by evidence collected by federal agencies enforcing drug laws.

According to the feds’ High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) program, teen use rates have gone down

since the end of pot prohibition for adults. And last month the Colorado-based deputy coordinator of the federal National Marijuana Initiative acknowledged that data from government drug surveys shows that Colorado saw a general decline in the number of teens using marijuana after the state legalized pot use.)

The Arizona voters guide includes pro and con talking points from a number of other Arizona notables, as well as a unique submission from Will Humble, the executive director of the Arizona Public Health Association.

Humble’s statement was so fair and balanced that it was printed twice — first alongside arguments for legalization and then alongside arguments against it.

“We believe Proposition XXX poses both public health risks and benefits,” Humble said. “Benefits include

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decriminalization for possession of small amounts of marijuana and expungement of prior marijuana convictions.

Possession of marijuana is a felony in Arizona (except for medical marijuana patients). Felony convictions and incarceration have lasting impacts on the mental, physical, and economic health of the individual and their children, lifetime lower earning potential, and reduced educational attainment.

“Incarceration and felony convictions for marijuana offenses have multigenerational social, economic, and health impacts that have been disproportionately thrust on communities of color because they are more likely to be arrested for and convicted of marijuana offenses,” he added.

“Proposition XXX also includes monitoring and regulation of production, potency, testing, and labeling of marijuana products. The tax revenue would support evidence-based public health programs, including substance use prevention and treatment. The Act would allow existing medical marijuana dispensaries to co-locate with dispensaries that could sell Cannabis to all adults over 21, which will make it easier to access and use.”

On the other hand, Humble said the risks of marijuana use “include impaired neurological development from use in adolescence, increased visits to emergency rooms from marijuana intoxication or accidental ingestion by children, adverse birth outcomes from maternal use, and injuries caused by impaired driving or workplace use.”

“If the Act passes, we urge the state to use its full regulatory authority to enforce purchasing age-limits, packaging and potency standards, regulate advertising and place of use restrictions, enact workplace use policy requirements, and solidify motor vehicle operation restrictions and penalties.

“Arizona officials should also partner with state universities to analyze and publish data on its public health impacts,” he finished.

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