Boulder Weekly 1.5.2023

Publisher, Fran Zankowski

Circulation Manager, Cal Winn

EDITORIAL

Editor-in-Chief, Caitlin Rockett

Arts & Culture Editor, Jezy J. Gray General Assignment Reporter, Will Matuska Food Editor, John Lehndorff

Contributing Writers: Dave Anderson, Emma Athena, Will Brendza, Rob Brezsny, Michael J. Casey, Angela K. Evans, Mark Fearer, Kaylee Harter, Nick Hutchinson, Dave Kirby, Ari LeVaux, Adam Perry, Dan Savage, Bart Schaneman, Alan Sculley, Samuel Shaw, Toni Tresca, Gregory Wakeman, Colin Wrenn

SALES AND MARKETING

Market Development Manager, Kellie Robinson

Account Executives, Matthew Fischer, Carter Ferryman, Chris Allred Mrs. Boulder Weekly, Mari Nevar

PRODUCTION

Art Director, Susan France

Senior Graphic Designer, Mark Goodman

CIRCULATION TEAM

Sue Butcher, Ken Rott, Chris Bauer

BUSINESS OFFICE Bookkeeper, Emily Weinberg

Founder/CEO, Stewart Sallo Editor-at-Large, Joel Dyer

Jan. 5, 2023

Volume XXX, number 20

Cover photo, Samuel Shaw

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.

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Trumpist spy and smear op hiding in Wyoming

by Dave Anderson

The Whine and Cheesy Mussolini is a sick joke, but the war on democracy isn’t over. Trump may fade away but the far right menace has deep roots. Consider a scandal in our neighboring state of Wyoming. It hasn’t received much attention. I couldn’t nd any mention of it in Colorado news media.

to be rather paranoid since Wyoming is overwhelmingly conservative and Republican.

But they also targeted Republican elected o cials who they considered to be insu ciently hardline. In addition, they messed around in Colorado and Arizona politics.

Boulder Weekly

welcomes your correspondence via email (letters@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.

New York Times reporters Adam Goldman and Mark Mazzetti recently revealed that Trump adviser Erik Prince, founder of the private mercenary contractor Blackwater (now known as Xe), worked with ex-British MI6 agent Richard Seddon on a spy and smear operation to in ltrate progressive groups, political campaigns and the o ces of Democratic elected o cials in Wyoming. ey seemed

At the beginning of the Trump administration, Seddon hired ex-spies and created a little school on the Prince family ranch in Wyoming teaching the art of political sabotage to Republican operatives. e participants included members of Project Veritas, an out t run by James O’Keefe which claims to be a journalistic enterprise but is actually a far right group which engages in “dirty tricks” against progressive groups, Democratic politicians

and mainstream news outlets. ey have been around for many years and are active all over the country. ey engage in “sting” operations designed to entrap their targets into actions or speech that would discredit them. ey use hidden cameras and microphones and produce deceptively edited videos.

Trump helped boost the fortunes of Prince and O’Keefe. Prince’s rm Blackwater played a signicant role in the Bush administration’s invasion and occupation of Iraq. In 2007, Blackwater security contractors shot and killed 17 Iraqi civilians and wounded dozens more in Baghdad’s Nisour Square. When Obama became president, the company couldn’t have any more contracts with the U.S. government. Prince negotiated a settlement with the Justice Department over arms tra cking violations and Obama’s CIA director Leon Panetta revealed a secret assassination program involving Blackwater operatives that former Vice President Dick Cheney had hidden from Congress.

Blackwater’s Nisour Square killers.

Shortly after Trump launched his presidential campaign in 2015, James O’Keefe visited Trump Tower. He had worked with Trump for years and Trump’s foundation had given O’Keefe at least $10,000. For years, he has faced criticism across the political spectrum. Many right wing donors publicly distanced themselves from his sleazy tactics. However, Project Veritas receives many anonymous millions from Donors Trust, which is heavily used by the Koch, Mercer and Coors families.

MANY RIGHT WING

In 2020, e New Republic had a lengthy expose of a Project Veritas campaign to delegitimize mail-in voting.

DONORS publicly distanced themselves from [O’Keefe’s] sleazy tactics. However, Project Veritas receives many anonymous millions from Donors Trust, which is heavily used by the Koch, Mercer and Coors families.

In 2014, Mother Jones reported that Project Veritas attempted to discredit Colorado’s new universal mail-in ballot system. O’Keefe and his collaborators disguised themselves and approached numerous Democratic campaigns and political organizations in Colorado to mishandle or fraudulently cast mail-in ballots.

JUNIE JOSEPH RESPONDS

On the rst day of the new year, my resolution was tested.

is was a low point for Prince. He changed the name of his company a number of times. He moved to oil-rich United Arab Emirates (UAE) in 2010. It was alleged he did this to escape possible criminal charges from the U.S. government. e U.S. and UAE have no extradition treaty.

Prince worked on military projects with UAE ruler Mohamed bin Zayed. In January 2017, at a resort in the Seychelles, Prince introduced bin Zayed to a Russian banker close to Putin. e Mueller investigators concluded this was an attempt to establish a backchannel between Russia and the incoming Trump administration.

Prince was already a pal of Steve Bannon, and his sister, Betsy DeVos, would become Trump’s Secretary of Education. Trump would later pardon

A man who said he was an LGBT activist came to a Democratic Party o ce in Boulder, asking if he could ll out ballots for other college students who had moved out of the state. He was told not to because it would be voter fraud.

A few days later, the man returned to the o ce with another man who he introduced as a 45-year-old CU Boulder “civics professor.” He had a phony mustache and heavy makeup. Sta ers identi ed O’Keefe as the “professor.” O’Keefe would later tweet a photo of himself in this disguise.

By the way, the Republicans now control the U.S. House and are promising big investigations.

is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.

As a public servant, my new year’s resolution is that we will work together to make Boulder the best and most positive community for our young people and all. However, my hope and desire for the new year was tested when a community member forwarded me an email from a member of the Boulder County Democratic Party’s candidate vacancy committee that showed a particular member rallying community members against my desire to nish my term on council.

(Editor’s note: In November, Boulder City Council member Junie Joseph was elected to represent Colorado House District-10. She has decided to serve in both seats concurrently until her council term is up at the end of 2023. e Daily Camera’s editorial board published an op-ed on Dec. 25 expressing concern over Joseph holding both seats.)

I have had prior experience with Ms. Celeste Landry; she was one of the contenders in the race for HD-10. After winning the vacancy committee, I reached out seeking her endorse-

ment, she told me no, and said that I should be primaried instead. I am not sure why a member of the Boulder County Democratic Party vacancy committee is running a campaign against me even after the vacancy committee has voted and the general election is over? And on the rst day of the new year. I have tried to be strong for my community members, but reading that email from Ms. Landry crushed me.

I care deeply for all my community members and appreciated their voice. I reached out to a few members of the community and learned that Ms. Landry has been reaching out to those who voted for my opponent (including Republicans) in order to mount this campaign against me. Over 4,000 people voted for my opponent. But more than 30,000 people supported my campaign. It saddens me that she is willing to work with those who are anti-democratic in order to further her own end and undermine my work.

I am trying my very best to refrain from categorizing and name calling as we have experienced over the last few

years in our political sphere. Some Democrats have been characterized as “Dems In Name Only” — DINOs. But I am careful not to subscribe to those types of slogans because people are complicated, the Democratic Party is a big tent party, and whether a person is a progressive far left or center right, we welcome all. But when I see such behavior coming from a Democrat, I wonder if being a Democrat means anything at all or is ambition so much more powerful than the desire to see all of us working together.

On this New Year’s Day, as I re ect on this email, Ms. Landry’s behavior is a bad example for children and the human spirit. Her current and past behaviors echo that when you lose against someone, as we have seen in Washington D.C., you don’t take your losses in stride and congratulate them, rather you mount a campaign against your perceived opponent and undermine them by attempting to rally others against them. As a community we looked over the last six years with horror when we think of our former president and the horrible example he sets for our youth. On this New Year’s Day, I wonder what is the di erence between Ms. Landry’s behavior and our former president. In sum, despite her poorly timed email, I am still hopeful that many in the community subscribe to my desire to work together to make Boulder the best and most positive community for our young people and all.

Junie Joseph/Boulder City Council member and CO HD-10 rep.-elect

PEE-EW, CU!

CU’s Right Here, Right Now climate “summit” was so hypocritical:

1. CU has invested some $100 million of student money in fossil fuels, thus helping seal their climate fate and losing more and more of their money, as the costs of fossil fuels pile up. Go Fossil Free CU!

2. CU’s plan for the CU South property will pave over part of a large wetland carbon sink and prevent the real “500-year” ood protection urged by the late great Gilbert White, founder of CU’s Natural Hazards Center, one of six CU U.S. Medal of Science recipients ever, immortalized by the ood level obelisk just east of the Broadway bridge over Boulder

Creek.

3. CU in 2020 red climate scientist Detlev Helmig, who established the rst continuous air monitoring here, revealing that oil and gas drilling, mostly in Weld County, is responsible for some 60% of the “severe” ozone problem on the Front Range. Continuous monitoring prevents industry from scheduling the release of toxins in between the usual occasional air samplings.

Similarly, in 2005, CU red Adrienne Anderson, who taught how to investigate environmental crimes for 12 years. e Colorado American Association of University Professors noted the “documents obtained by CU students using the Colorado Open Records Act, nding voluminous evidence of polluters and (then-governor) Owens political appointees exerting their political muscle through implied threats of loss of funding should CU o cials not cater to their desires to curb Ms. Anderson’s rights on the CU faculty.”

4. CU has accepted over $8 million from Saudi Arabia since 2018. For what? Research into how to propagandize highly educated people, like those who attended the climate “summit”? Or just good PR for a dictatorship that kidnapped, tortured, killed and dismembered American journalist Jamal Khashoggi and that has beheaded over 80 state enemies in a day?

CU? Pee-ew!

Evan Ravitz/Boulder

ANOTHER CULTURED MEAT LETTER

Believer Meats is breaking ground on a cultivated-meat facility in North Carolina, which the company says is the largest of its kind in the world. Cultivated meat is grown from livestock cells, without slaughter. It’s better for the environment, public health and animal welfare. Despite this and other progress from the private sector, more public funding is needed for cellular-agriculture research so cultivated meat can achieve price parity with slaughtered meat. By advancing this technology, we can reduce our greenhouse-gas emissions, pandemic risk, and the su ering we in ict on God’s creatures.

Jon Hochschartner/Connecticut

Email: letters@boulderweekly.com

A cloud overhead

Amatte-black carrying case with two heavy latches suggests something vaguely weapons-grade in the trunk of the rented Jeep. An optical gas-imaging camera is removed from the case’s interior styrofoam mold. When powered up, the camera emits a hum, the sound of a large infrared sensor cooling itself in the same way surface-to-air missiles do. But this heat-seeking eye won’t be searching for jet aircraft. It’s designed to detect methane, hydrocarbons and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) leaking from fracking facilities across the state, and on this frosty morning, a handful of gas wells around the small town of Ault, Colorado, just east of Fort Collins.

story and photos

by Samuel Shaw

Andrew Klooster, the man calibrating the camera, is young, sharpeyed, serious. He’s a gas imaging thermographer for Earthworks, a petroleum industry watchdog. Klooster has traveled to more than 700 sites around Colorado collecting videos of possible violations, which are then submitted to state regulators. Klooster’s camera can see what the human eye can’t.

Methane, among the most potent greenhouse gasses — along with VOCs like toluene, butane, hexane, and benzene, a known carcinogen linked to a host of serious health complications — show up as a dance of color to the infrared camera. Colorless and otherwise beyond human perception, these plumes of hydrocarbons make themselves visible in other ways, in the bleeding noses of children, burning eyes, upset stomachs and, further down the line, elevated rates of congenital heart defects where exposure is chronic. With more than 10,500 actively producing oil and gas sites, Weld County — or “Well” county as some locals call it — is one of those places: the most heavily drilled region in Colorado and the fth most productive oil county in the country. Ault lies near its geographic center.

Hypernormal

Klooster’s survey doesn’t begin at one of the many drilling operations dotting the farmland. Instead, it starts with a visit to a one-story bungalow in Ault’s oldest neighborhood, the home of a retired English professor. Carol Hawkins, 71, lives alone with her dog and a collection of air-puri ers placed consciously throughout the house, what was supposed to be a dream home and a place to mourn the passing of her husband when she moved back to Colorado from Maine in 2017.

“I couldn’t a ord to live in Denver or Fort Collins. At the same time, I loved rural America,” Hawkins says. She found a listing for a charming craftsman-style residence and sent her daughter, a Coloradan, to investigate: “I remember her saying, ‘Mom, this house is perfect!’ But she didn’t say anything about the fracking (wells), because in Colorado it’s become

ABOVE: Andrew Klooster with his optical gas-imaging camera

BELOW: Ault, Colorado resident Carol Hawkins

These fracking leaks were invisible until a photographic ‘hunter’ captured them in infrared

too normalized. It just didn’t register.”

With Hawkins’ pre-existing lung condition, the prospect of living by wells was alarming, but the risks, like the drilling, seemed distant. Over time, Ault’s expansive views across the eastern plains were studded by noise barriers surrounding new drilling operations in elds by grazing livestock.

“ ings got personal when I received a ‘forced pooling notice’ from a gas industry lawyer the year I moved here,” Hawkins recalls. e controversial practice allows oil and gas companies to e ectively annex mineral rights from property owners and drill beneath their homes regardless of their consent. Hawkins not only declined the o er, she wanted to ght it.

e death of Ted Poszywak in nearby Firestone in April of 2017 solidi ed her resistance. Fracking gasses saturating Poszywak’s home combusted violently, transforming the two-story house into a crater. “I was freaked out,” Hawkins says. She got in touch with Kate Merlin, a WildEarth Guardian sta attorney who decided to represent Hawkins’ forced pooling case pro-bono — and they won.

Hawkins began educating herself and tuning into science panels on the risks of fracking hosted by 350 Colorado, an environmental advocacy group focused on fossil fuels. at’s where she rst found Klooster. “ is is what I need, somebody who can give me hard evidence,” she remembers thinking

Gaslit

Bringing formal complaints to the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division is Klooster’s primary role with Earthworks. Less obvious are the relationships he’s built with residents like Hawkins, who he invites on these eld surveys. ey provide tips about suspected leaks around their community and, in return, nd a sense of validation that these abstract dangers can be made visible through Klooster’s camera — even if that’s not always pleasant. “ e rst time I went with Andrew, it was a little traumatizing,” Hawkins half jokes.

One of these relationships led Klooster to the Prospected Energy facility in Fort Collins, where residents’ pleas to state regulators failed to produce any follow-up investigation. ey were eventually vindicated: e site was shut down by the Department of Public Health in August 2021 after Klooster captured multiple, massive emission events. It was discovered that those living by the facility had been subjected to dangerous concentrations of hydrogen sul de, a poisonous, corrosive and ammable gas that can cause eye and respiratory irritation, insomnia or convulsions, according to the Centers for Disease Control.

“ e ability to give community members that additional insight, that ammunition for their ghts to try to hold this industry accountable, is really the important piece of all of this, maybe the most important piece,” Klooster says. “A typical rst reaction to seeing these plumes is shock.”

at power is on full display as Hawkins steps from the Jeep onto the gravel access road leading to the Ruby 7-J well pad. e site is operated by Bayswater, a Denver-based oil and gas corporation. Klooster stands back from the tripod as Hawkins stoops over the LCD display. “Sons of bitches,” she mutters. “I can’t believe this.”

e infrared sensor displays an ominous orange cloud billowing from behind the noise barrier. Klooster is more circumspect. Without a clear view of

the source, he can’t be sure what we are seeing. “We have to be careful with these noise walls. is could be hydraulic uid from the mud being pumped out of the bore hole or it could be dust from the trucks,” Klooster explains. “[State regulators] will just dismiss this if we can’t see the source.”

We travel south of Ault’s main drag to survey the PDC California well pad, which is in the active drilling phase. Hawkins gestures to a nearby cluster of homes, looking worried. “My grandson just bought his rst home there,” she says. Two months ago his partner gave birth to Clover, a baby girl. “I’m scared to death for her,” Hawkins says. e new Eaton High School is less than a half-mile away while countless suburban developments swell in the distance.

An air monitor in front of a noise barrier in Weld County.

ABOVE:

Our last stop brings us to a freshly built Bayswater facility abutting a dozen new homes and a few ranchettes. Klooster beckons Hawkins over to his perch by a barbed wire fence, camera trained on a seemingly innocuous row of tan tanks. e view nder reveals something else instead, a colossal plume uorescing across the LCD screen. It’s settled like a blanket over some of the houses.

Klooster delivers his assessment: “We’re looking at a major emissions event. is is bad. is is really bad. Hydrocarbons are just pouring out of there.” As he says this, an older man exits a small, weathered cottage by the parked jeep and approaches our group looking concerned. He introduces himself as Mike, and says he’s lived there on and o for 50 years. Calmly, Klooster explains why we are loitering on this remote, dusty road, then informs Mike about the major leak across the eld.

Mike stands by the camera taking in the news. “I don’t know if it’s all good or all bad, but it is what it is,” Mike says nally, though, like Hawkins, he had refused an o er on his property’s mineral rights. Klooster re ects on the encounter on the drive back to Ault. Shock and horror are common responses for residents seeing leaks rst hand. “So is fatalism,” he says. “ ey don’t feel like they’ve got much power over the situation. ese are massive companies.”

Klooster submitted a formal complaint to the Colorado Air Pollution Control Division. As of Dec. 16, Bayswater denies violating any regulations.

Emerging risks, phantom pains

A 2019 Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment study modeling the e ects of acute VOC exposure within 2,000 feet of a well concluded that short-term health impacts like nose bleeds and nausea were real. Disregarding the focus of the research — short-term e ects — industry representatives found another way to interpret the ndings. “ ere are no long-term health impacts related to oil and gas development,” John Haley, president of the Colorado Oil and Gas Association, said at a news conference. A growing body of evidence may suggest otherwise.

CU Anschutz professor Lisa McKenzie is a public health epidemiologist who specializes in air pollution generated by fracking. She was frustrated with many of the conclusions drawn from the 2019 study. “ e research did indicate there could be increased risks for short-term health e ects,” McKenzie says. “ at doesn’t mean there aren’t any health e ects at farther distances or longer

because, rst of all, they didn’t have that data. It also wasn’t

ABOVE: A view through Andrew Klooster’s optical gas-imaging camera.

they were looking for.”

Her recent studies have focused on health outcomes for children living at least a kilometer from wells, like Hawkins’ grandson and his newborn daughter. McKenzie laid out a series of complications potentially linked to fracking exposure: “In areas with dense oil and gas development, we’ve been seeing low birth weights, more preterm births, more children with congenital heart defects and increased incidence of childhood cancers such as acute lymphocytic leukemia.”

Children growing up close to high-density fracking were four times as likely to develop blood cancer.

None of this is news to Klooster, who views his thermography as a modest, though important piece in educating the public about dangers inherent to drilling. “ e industry has gotten away with a whole lot, because for the longest time, people weren’t even aware of the possible health impacts of oil and gas extraction,” he says. And when concerns do pop up, as they have, it’s been easy for industry operators to say there’s nothing to see. Not in small part because the compounds in question escape the eyes’ capacity to do so.

Klooster’s camera is also a mirror then. Its re ections can be described in scienti c terms: emissivity, electro-magnetic radiation, thermal gradients. For residents trying to make sense of their relationship to an extractive landscape, the story told by this infrared sensor requires little explanation. It’s the same facility they’ve seen many times, only now, there’s a new detail. A cloud overhead.

COURTESY ANDREW KLOOSTER

Head space

Denver’s Perception Records takes mental health as seriously as music

by Carter Ferryman

COURTNEY SCOUT

For Jake Leventhal, perception in the music world is damn near everything. How does the average fan perceive their favorite artist? How does that artist perceive themself? Is it possible the industry could improve both?

The word holds a special precedence in Leventhal’s life. So, when it came time to pick a name for his budding record label in early 2022, he landed on a natural fit: Perception Records.

But music is about more than what’s on the surface for Leventhal. He is trying to challenge peoples’ perception of what a label can be. This drive came after a near-fatal bout with COVID in 2020, which transformed music into a place of solace for the Denver-based entrepreneur and musician who records under the name Jay.Greens.

“It will never be just about the artist. It’s about the human being behind the art as well,” Leventhal says. “I’ve lived this shit. We become commodities. It’s dehumanizing. There’s ways to provide resources to artists so that they’re not left on their own to cope.”

To that end, Leventhal makes wellness resources accessible to every artist at Perception Records. He recently signed a deal with Borer, Newman & Associates, a specialized mental health service for all sectors of the music industry based in Los Angeles, which

provides one-on-one counseling sessions and trauma-based workshops for artists and staff.

“For songwriters, we live so much of what we write,” says Perception artist Tony Haslett, a.k.a. G. Finesse, a veteran emcee from Columbus, Ohio. “And half the time we’re going crazy. You just can’t treat music like an assembly line. So when you have a label that understands that, while we are musicians, there’s so much going on in our lives, it makes you feel comfortable.”

But making artists feel supported is only part of the mission at Perception Records. There’s a reason Leventhal cares so much, and it starts and ends with the most crucial element: the music.

‘A million little pockets of musical brilliance’

The multi-talented Leventhal, donning a beanie and impeccable mustache, sits behind a desk in the corner of a cozy, tapestry-laden room in his Denver basement. It doesn’t take long for him to wax poetic about his community.

“There’s a reason I fell in love with music the way I did,” he says. “I’m born and raised in Denver.”

Leventhal’s Front Range roots run deep. He split his adolescence between the dimly lit concert halls of Broadway and the towering sandstone of Red Rocks Amphitheatre. It was in these spaces where Leventhal became a student of the game.

COURTNEY SCOUT

“The city has so many types of music, and they all function somewhat separately,” he says. “I’d check out the house scene, and the jazz scene, then the jam scene, and the funk scene, and recognize the million little pockets of musical brilliance.”

Bringing together those disparate corners of the local music scene was an early cornerstone of Leventhal’s mission with Perception. It’s a big part of what prompted Haslett (G. Finesse) — who’d developed a bond with Leventhal over the previous few years when the pair were housemates in Denver — to sign with the label.

“Jake could talk hip-hop with me, or soul, or jazz, all of it,” says Haslett, whose unique brand of socially conscious rap draws equally from soul and funk traditions. “I realized this is somebody I could connect with on a musical level. Plus he saw the vision of what I was trying to accomplish.”

Another artist drawn to Leventhal's omnivorous musical appetite was Salt Lake City’s Luka Nezi, blending psych-rock and electronic music under the moniker Murmurs, whose debut single will be released via Perception Records in February.

“I asked Jake if he thought my music would fit on the label,” Nezi says. “He said the

whole thing with Perception was to have all types of genres — to not fit into one box.” Perception’s genre-scrambling approach may have been an enticing sell for artists like Nezi and Haslett. But the talented team behind the boards — like Josh Fairman, a member of Denver’s Sunsquabi and Midnight.Blue, as well as a producer and engineer — is a big part of what keeps them sticking around.

“I always recorded in a room by myself,” says Nezi, whose first time in a recording studio was last summer. “They’ve taught me so much about producing. Most of the stuff had never even occurred to me. I’ve really learned how to strip my songs back and really clean my sound up.”

Leventhal sees this cocktail of collaboration and versatility as a blueprint for success. But Perception’s real value comes back to Leventhal's commitment to artists’ mental well-being, in and out of the studio.

“I feel obligated to take care of these people. I feel a calling to do so,” Leventhal says. “I feel like it’s why I’m here on this earth.”

Three Perception Records artists to watch in 2023

Midnight.Blue

Perception Records' marquee band is a collaborative project that began in spring of 2020. The lineup features vocalist Lyle Divinsky (formerly of The Motet), keyboardist Ian Gilley (Recess), guitarist Jake “Jay.Greens” Leventhal (Perception Records), bassist Josh Fairman (Sunsquabi), and members of the legendary local jam band Lettuce, including Adam Deitch on drums and Eric “Benny” Bloom on trumpet.

Their debut album, Breathe, released in August 2022, walks a line between neosoul, hip-hop and R&B. It’s smooth and easy-going, combining 30 years of experience with exciting new faces. Halle Tomlison and G. Finesse appear on the album as well. Tomlinson’s angelic, wispy vocals stand out on numerous tracks (most notably “Illumination”), and G. Finesse mends complex lyricism to a cadence that flows over soft instrumentation on “20/20.”

DJ Williams

Perception’s newest addition, signed to the roster last month, comes to Denver by way of Richmond, Virginia — and has chops for miles. The guitarist and singer-songwriter founded the Richmond-based DJ Williams Projekt, as well as Denver’s own soul outfit, Shots Fired. He has shared the stage with names like John Legend, John Oates, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick and more. A lethal combination of melody and versatility, Williams will certainly be a welcome addition to the growing stable of artists at Perception Records.

JAN.

JAN.

FEB.

FEB.

G. Finesse

Don’t let the limited streaming catalog fool you — G. Finesse is a grizzled vet. The hard-nosed Columbus native’s socially conscious, razor-sharp lyricism has been elevated since joining Perception Records, and with his unforgettable voice and cadence, the sky's the limit for one of the label’s original signees. “We Gon’ Make It” is a soulful, fluid tune, his feature on “20/20” by labelmate Midnight.Blue is a crash course on his ability to flow with ease, and “Keep the Fame” joins airtight bars with melodies by Kim Dawson.

COURTESY PERCEPTION RECORDS

ASHLEY TRAVIS

COURTNEY SCOUT

Shine on

Ahead of his band’s 10th annual Stanley Hotel residency, Murder by Death frontman Adam Turla shares the albums he would take along as winter caretaker of the spirited landmark that inspired ‘The Shining’ by Adam Perry

ON THE BILL: Murder by Death 10th annual concert series. 8 p.m. Jan 6-7 and 1315. The Stanley Hotel, 333 E. Wonderview Ave., Estes Park. Sold out.

It’s been more than two decades since Murder by Death formed in the idyllic college town of Bloomington, Indiana — and the years since have found the haunted-Americana outfit pushing the limits of what fans should expect from a live show. This includes the band’s annual two-weekend residency at the purportedly haunted Stanley Hotel, the Estes Park landmark that served as the inspiration for Stephen King’s 1977 horror touchstone The Shining Singer and guitarist Adam Turla says he gets a kick out of treating fans to Murder By Death concerts that are experiences, like the Stanley Hotel shows and the gigs the band plays 500 feet deep in the Caverns Pelham in Tennessee.

“I just try to think, ‘What do I think is cool?’ I have a vehicle to make cool things, so I’m gonna make them and hope other people think they’re cool, too,” he says from his home in Louisville, Kentucky, where he’s busy shipping merchandise, including vinyl copies of the new Murder By Death album Spell / Bound, to fans during the holiday rush. “That’s what you’re doing when you’re starting a band. You’re saying, ‘This is what I’m into. I’m making the art I believe in.’”

In the leadup to the 10th anniversary of what is arguably the band’s coolest regular gig, Boulder Weekly asked Turla to share a few of the albums he would bring with him if, like the ill-fated Jack Torrance in King’s masterpiece, he found himself as winter caretaker of the famously spirited hotel. Tickets are already sold out, but if you’re among the many Murder By Death fans who will be purposely stranding themselves in Estes Park this weekend and next, these picks will make for a great soundtrack.

David Bowie - The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars (1972)

Turla says he was pretty deep into jock life as a teenager, before his whole world changed upon hearing David Bowie’s The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars. Decades after his life in rock ‘n’ roll started as a kid equally obsessed with the Loch Ness Monster, Big Foot, Dungeons and Dragons and Robert Smith, Turla still sees Bowie’s “defiant act” of getting into the Ziggy Stardust character as a line-in-the-sand moment for him.

“He was so out there that it opened up my mind to a [new] form of expression… I was playing sports at that time and there was nothing freeing about sports that I could find. You couldn’t be yourself,” he says. “I realized I was a weird kid and pretty much everyone else that was on the team got weeded out. I watched talented kids get pushed out of the system because they were a little weird. I was hanging on in that world for a while, honestly probably because I was a lefty pitcher and we were rare. I saw a freedom in [Ziggy Stardust] that excited me.”

The Pogues - If I Should Fall from Grace with God (1988)

Next up for Turla would be the Pogues’ classic If I Should Fall From Grace with God, which he heard on a cassette in a car as a kid. “It was so raucous and beautiful, and I was, like, ‘Whoa! You can be both?’ The lyrics were the best I had ever heard at that point, and that became a hugely important band for me when it comes to what I think is interesting about music.”

The Cure - Disintegration

(1989)

Opening for the Pogues was a Murder By Death career highlight, according to Turla, but opening for The Cure would be such an honor that he wouldn’t mind retiring afterward. Disintegration is third on Turla’s list of albums he’d take to the Stanley if stranded there.

“It’s one of my most-listened-to albums of all time. … I love their catalog. Anything that came out from their start to the late ’90s was deep in my psyche. I just dug in. That album has such a comprehensive-album feel and it’s also very wintery, so it’s perfect for the Stanley.”

Björk - Homogenic (1997)

The last choice for Turla is Björk’s Homogenic, “another record that just blew my mind when I was starting to realize what was possible with music. I think my friend had told me about Björk, and what I did not understand until I got this record was how it was both super organic and electronic, and that there was a level of composition and artistry that was so much farther in the direction of challenging art than I ever knew was possible in that genre, or whatever I had assumed was her genre.”

He says album opener “Hunter” is apt for being stranded at the Stanley because it’s “another incredible winter song that feels like you are in an arctic tundra pulsing with a snowstorm.”

■ Community Grief and Gratitude Project

Jan. 5-8, 900 Canyon Ave., Boulder

Members of the Boulder County community are invited to tie ribbons to the railing of the pedestrian bridge across Boulder Creek west of Broadway in a display honoring personal grief and gratitude. Organizers ask that you please consider making your ribbons from old sheets or other re-purposed materials. A closing ceremony will be held at the site from 1-3 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 8.

■ Jeff and Paige Concert Plus Pika Storytime

9:15-11:30 a.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, Museum of Boulder, 2205 Broadway. Free

Everyone’s favorite kid-friendly musical duo drops by the Museum of Boulder for a morning of songs and stories. The fun kicks off with Pika Storytime, followed by a Jeff and Paige concert at 10:30 a.m. Expect “songs, storytelling, and interactive play to engage kids ages 3-9 with nature, music and movement.”

■ Full Moon Gentle Yoga + Sound Healing

7-8:15 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, Yoga Pearl, 900 Pearl St., Suite 4, Boulder. $27 (drop-in)

Want to ring in the New Year (and welcome the full moon) with a gentle yoga practice? Join Valerie Weyrich for this easygoing session complete with the healing sounds of gongs, singing bowls and other peaceful instruments. Space is limited, so be sure to sign up in advance to reserve your spot.

■ Long Pose Figure Drawing

1-4 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, NoBo Art Center, 4929 Broadway, Unit E, Boulder. $28

Drop by the NoBo Art Center on the second Sunday of every month for uninstructed, facilitated monthly long-pose figure painting and drawing. Bring your own supplies and easel (or share one of the center’s nine workhorses, six easels and four boards). Pre-registration is required, and spots tend to fill up fast.

■ Vision + Goals Workshop: Create The Life You Love

2-3:30 p.m. Sunday, Jan. 8, Yoga Pearl, 900 Pearl St., Boulder. $65 ($45 members)

You’ve got big plans for 2023. That’s why Yoga Pearl is inviting you to harness your hopes for the new year with this 90-minute workshop. Host Alia Sebben will help you manifest a 10-year vision for your life through journaling exercises, yoga, guided meditation and community conversation. Whether your goals are related to your career, personal life, health or something in between, this workshop is designed to help you make them a reality in the decade to come.

COURTESY COMMUNITY GRIEF AND GRATITUDE PROJECT

COURTESY YOGA PEARL

COURTESY JEFF AND PAIGE

COURTESY YOGA PEARL

■ Rion Evans Presents: TV Game Show Night 8 p.m. Friday, Jan. 6, Louisville Underground, 640 Main St. $10

Tired of shouting Jeopardy! and Wheel answers at the screen? Join host Rion Evans at The Louisville Underground for a chance to get in on the action yourself. The speakeasy-style venue located behind Tilt Pinball transforms into the set of your favorite TV game shows during this fun, 21+ game night featuring food, drinks and lots of laughs. Seating is first-come, first-served.

of Fortune

■ Firehouse Artists’ Circle Noon-2:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9, Firehouse Art Center, 667 Fourth Ave., Longmont. Free

Artists of all skill levels could always use a little community, which is why Firehouse Arts Center in Longmont hosts a monthly get-together among creatives on the second Monday of each month. No matter where you are on your artist journey, you’re sure to find value in sharing creative energies and inspiration while working on your individual projects during this artists’ circle.

■ Drop-in Monday Night Writers’ Group 6-7:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 9, Longmont Public Library, 409 Fourth Ave. Free

Working on the Great American Novel, personal memoir or something in between? Kara McLaughlin of Little Sage Books leads an informal group of local wordsmiths during this weekly writing seminar at the Longmont Public Library. Head to the Unquiet Study Area on the second floor for “a thoughtful, intentional and inclusive space to gather around the art and craft of writing.”

■ Spirit of Nia Dance Class at Unity 9-10 a.m. Tuesday, Jan. 10, Unity of Boulder Spiritual Center, 2855 Folsom St. $13 (drop-in)

Nia is a fitness practice combining dance, martial arts and mindfulness — and you can learn the ins-and-outs during the Spirit of Nia Dance Class at the Unity of Boulder Spiritual Center. Black belt-trained instructors Rebekah Hartman and Lisa Baba will help participants “experience the joy of movement, self expression and soul connection” while getting a good workout at the same time. Childcare and senior discounts are available.

ON THE BILL:

Canadian pop star Carly Rae Jepsen headlines the “Colorado for All” celebration of the inauguration of Gov. Jared Polis during an eclectic night of live music with Belinda Carlisle and They Might Be Giants at Mission Ballroom on Tuesday, Jan. 10. The singer-songwriter behind the 2012 smash hit “Call Me Maybe” will support her dreamy, synth-driven new LP, The Loneliest Time, out now via 604 Records.

THURSDAY,

JAN. 5

Lionel Young Duo. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

Den Plays with Strangers. 6 p.m. Bootstrap Brewing, 142 Pratt St., Longmont. Free

Aaron Mitchell. 5 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Boulder, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

FRIDAY, JAN. 6

Trouble No More with Daniel Donato’s Cosmic Country. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. $25

Silver and Smoke, JuiceBox M’Lady, Kyle Moon and The Misled. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E Colfax Ave., Denver. $20

Joe Marcinek Band All Star Super Jam. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. $13 (advance)

The Saints. 6 p.m. Bootstrap Brewing, 142 Pratt St., Longmont. Free

SATURDAY, JAN. 7

Casey Donahew, Kaitlin Butts and Chris Colston. 8 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $33

The Fab Four: The Ultimate Tribute. 8 p.m. Paramount Theater, 1621 Glenarm Place, Denver. $34,

Teague Starbuck. 6 p.m. Beyond the Mountain Brewing Co., 6035 Longbow Drive, Unit 109, Boulder. Free

Blankslate. 6 p.m. BOCO Cider, 1501 Lee Hill Drive, Unit 14, Boulder. Free

Abear Acoustic Duo de Loop. 7 p.m. Longs Peak Pub & Taphouse. 600 Longs Peak Ave., Longmont. Free

The Band of Heathens and Jaime Wyatt. 7 p.m. eTown Hall, 1535 Spruce St., Boulder. $33,

SUNDAY, JAN. 8

Open Mike Eagle, Serengeti and Video Dave. 8 p.m. Larimer Lounge, 2721 Larimer St., Denver. $20

DJ $ANJAUN. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

TUESDAY, JAN. 10

Carly Rae Jepsen, Belinda Carlisle and They Might Be Giants. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. $75

WEDNESDAY, JAN. 11

Jake Leg Duo. 9 p.m. Velvet Elk Lounge, 2037 13th St., Boulder. Free

MEREDITH JENKS

True crime

Americans are fascinated with criminals. You know this because you watch movies and TV, listen to podcasts, read books and magazines and encounter their stories everywhere. Sometimes they’re protagonists you root for. Sometimes they’re villains who are more entertaining than the hero. This infatuation with those living outside the law extends back to the frontiers of the Wild West — maybe even the rebellious founders who dumped tea in Boston Harbor. Whatever it is, there is an endless fascination with those who refuse to play by the rules, for better or for worse.

This plays doubly true for those criminal stories with a basis in reality. So it goes in American Murderer, the impressive feature debut from writer-director Matthew Gentile, based on the crimes of FBI’s most wanted Jason Derek Brown. Played by Tom Pelphrey, American Murderer’s Jason is a career conman with a sparkling smile and an ability to talk his way in and out of just about everything. He’s fit and good-looking, though Pelphrey and Gentile don’t work too hard to hide Jason’s age. He’s north of youthful indiscretion, and the past is catching up fast.

American Murderer opens with Jason haggling over the value of a watch and ring at a pawn shop, then deftly escaping some angry creditors via the shop’s back door. That the owner doesn’t question why Jason needs a back door exit says a lot. Ditto for how Jason’s brother, David (Paul

Schneider) and sister, Jamie (Shantel VanSanten), don’t really question Jason’s requests. Only Mom (Jacki Weaver) calls out her son’s BS — probably because Jason turned out like dear old dad (Kevin Corrigan).

There are others. Single mom Michelle (Idina Menzel) suspects Jason isn’t what he appears, but can’t help herself. He pays her the attention she needs, and he’s genial with her son. Women at the bar know Jason talks a bigger game than he plays but still fall for it. Everyone thinks they know who Jason is, but they have only fragments. Only FBI Special Agent Lance Leising (Ryan Phillippe) has the whole picture.

American Murderer is framed by Leising’s investigation, with interviews touching off various flashbacks. It’s a smart construct and allows Gentile to show rather than tell while maintaining a reserved distance. It’s not objective, per se, but it does keep the narrative from falling for Jason’s spell. Gentile and Pelphrey are not conspiring to glorify Jason but to puncture his fantasy.

Gentile does this through a home video — one Jason shot of himself on a boat with plenty of booze, surrounded by women in bikinis. On the surface, it looks like the success Jason has always envisioned. But in truth, the vodka he’s drinking is cheap, the women’s attention is superficial, and Jason keeps talking to the camera as if no one on the boat is listening.

Gentile has both Jason and Agent Leising return to this video multiple times. One is searching for clues, the other for a reminder of what he once had. Both are emblematic of what makes these kinds of stories so damn fascinating. It’s also what makes American Murderer one to watch.

‘American Murderer’ is not your average cops and criminals yarn by Michael J. Casey

AMAZON PRIME

ON SCREEN: American Murderer is streaming on Amazon Prime.

Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary

3470 County Road 7, Erie, luvinarms.org

Critter Classifieds is a column where you can meet furry, feathered and four-legged friends who need your love and support. Boulder Weekly is currently working with two animal welfare agencies — Longmont Humane Society and Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary — to feature critters who need your support. We hope to bring other organizations on board in the future.

Erie-based Luvin Arms is a nonprofit animal sanctuary for abused or neglected farm animals. Rescued resident animals include cows, pigs, turkeys, chickens, horses, goats, donkeys, sheep and ducks. Luvin Arms provides lifelong social, emotional and cognitive care to rescued animals. Visit luvinarms.org to learn more about how you can provide support through donations, sponsorship, volunteering and more.

If your nonprofit organization has volunteer needs and is interested in a similar column, please reach out to us:

Maggie the rescue duck: small but mighty

In her previous life, Maggie was bullied by other ducks. As with some circles of friends, Maggie was the one on the outside. When she came to live at Luvin Arms, she got a fresh start with new friends, including her best friend, Luna the duck. The two live happily together, swimming in their baby pool from sun up to sun down.

Madeline, one of her caregivers at Luvin Arms, describes Maggie’s love of water: “Every morning when we open, we have to bring buckets of water to fill Maggie and Luna’s pool. But we can never be fast enough for little Maggie! As soon as we open their door, she goes right to the empty pool and sometimes even goes in it with no water, telling us to be faster.”

Ducks have regional accents based on where they live. Like all animals, ducks quickly adapt to their surroundings, even picking up sounds from humans living in the area.

Anyone who has visited the sanctuary recently knows Maggie’s distinctive call. Some might say it sounds like a witch’s cackle. Or

ON THE FARM: Maggie is Luvin Arms Animal Sanctuary’s Resident of the Month for January.

even the quack of Batman’s arch nemesis, the Penguin. New visitors follow the big sound Maggie makes and are quite surprised to find the diminutive duck. Another caregiver, Kara, describes Maggie’s personality as spicy. “Whenever we walk by, she sounds like she’s laughing at us! It always makes me laugh. She also likes to charge us when we are walking away. She acts super tough, but as soon as you try to grab her or turn around towards her, she runs away.”

Recently, Maggie and her BFF moved to a new home at the sanctuary.

To prevent cabin fever this winter, Luvin Arms would like to create a mentally stimulating living space in Maggie’s new home, including potted plants, hay balls, sand piles, perches, climbing structures, swings and perhaps even a water feature.

With cold winter days upon us, please consider sponsoring Maggie this month and help Luvin Arms create a stimulating new home outfitted just for Maggie and her forever friend, Luna.

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Nigerian author Wole Soyinka reworked the ancient Greek play, The Bacchae . In one passage, the god Dionysus criticizes King Pentheus, who is supposedly all-powerful. “You are a man of chains,” Dionysus tells him. “You love chains. You breathe chains, talk chains, eat chains, dream chains, think chains. Your world is bound in manacles.” The bad news, Aries, is that many of us have some resemblances to Pentheus. The good news is that the coming months will be a favorable time to shed at least some of your chains. Have fun liberating yourself! Try to help a few others wriggle free from their chains, too. Doing so will aid your own emancipation.

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: The coming weeks will be a great time to fill your journal with more intense ruminations than you have for many moons. If you don’t have a journal, think about starting one. Reveal yourself to yourself, Taurus! Make conscious that which has been vague, unnamed, or hiding. Here are assignments to help launch your flood of intimate self-talk. 1. Write passionately about an experience you’ve always wanted to try but have never done. 2. Conduct imaginary interviews with people who rouse strong feelings in you. 3. Describe what deity, superhero, or animal you are and how your special intelligence works. 4. Visualize a dream in which you appear as a bolder, more confident version of yourself. 5. Talk about a time you felt rousingly alive and how you plan to feel that way again.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: A stranger approached me at Wild Birds Unlimited, a store that sells bird food and accessories. “You write the horoscopes, right?” she asked. “I’m a Gemini, and I want to thank you for helping me tone down my relentless fidgeting. You made me realize I have been secretly proud of tapping my fingers on the table while talking with people, and constantly darting my eyes around the room to check out the ever-changing views. I’d unconsciously believed that stuff was a sign of my incredible vitality. But you’ve been a steadying influence. You’ve shown me ways to settle down and focus my energy better. I can see how restlessness sometimes saps my energy.” I told the woman, “You’re welcome!” and let her know that 2023 will be a favorable time to do much more of this good work. Homework: Meditate on channeling your incredible vitality into being grounded and centered.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: According to Cancerian author Ronald Sukenick, the writer’s work is “to destroy restrictive viewpoints, notice the unnoticed, speak the unspeakable, shake stale habits, ward off evil, give vent to sorrow, pulverize doctrine, attack and uphold tradition as needed, and make life worth living.” I believe 2023 will be an excellent time for you to carry out those actions, even if you’re not a writer. You will have abundant power to bless and heal through creative rebellion and disruption. You will thrive as you seek out interesting novelty.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: Psychotherapist Ryan Howes has wisdom you’ll benefit from heeding in the coming weeks. “We need to accept our age,” he writes. “We need to accept illnesses and addictions. We need to accept the past. We need to accept others as they are.” He goes on to say that this doesn’t mean we must like all these situations. And we can certainly try to make the best of them. But when we don’t struggle in vain to change what’s beyond our control to change, we have more energy for things that we can actually affect.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: Here’s testimony from musician Pharrell Williams: “If someone asks me what inspires me, I always say, ‘That which is missing.’” Yes! This is an apt message for you, Virgo. The best way for you to generate motivation and excitement in the coming weeks will be to explore what is lacking, what is invisible, what’s lost or incomplete. Check in with your deep intuition right now. Do you feel a stirring in your gut? It may tell you where to find important and intriguing things that are missing.

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: “Every animal knows far more than you do,” declares a proverb of the Nimíipuu people, also known as the Nez Perce. Author Russell Banks provides further testimony to convince us we should be humble about our powers of awareness. “There is a wonderful intelligence to the unconscious,” he says. “It’s always smarter than we are.” These are good pointers for you to heed in the coming weeks, Libra. You will have a special power to enhance your understanding of the world by calling on the savvy of animals and your unconscious mind. They will be especially rich sources of wisdom. Seek out their educational input!

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: Psychologist Carl Jung said that the whole point of Jesus Christ’s story was not that we should become exactly like him. Rather, we should aspire to be our best and highest selves in the same way that he fulfilled his unique mission. So Jesus was not the great exception, but rather the great example. I bring these meditations to your attention, Scorpio, because I believe life in 2023 will conspire to make you, more than ever before, the hero of your own destiny. You will be inspired to honor only your own standards of success and reject all others’. You will clearly see that you are progressing at your own natural and righteous pace, which is why it makes no sense to compare your evolution to anyone else’s.

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: A reader named Mary Roseberry describes her experience of being a Sagittarius: “I hate to be bored. I hate imperfections. I hate to wait. I hate sadness. I hate conflict. I hate to be wrong. I hate tension.” Wow! I admire Mary’s succinct understanding of who she doesn’t want to be and what she doesn’t like to do. I invite you to compose a similar testimony. You would benefit from getting clear about the experiences you intend to avoid in 2023. Once you have done that, write a list of the interesting feelings and situations you will seek out with intense devotion during the coming months.

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: When he was 74 years old, Capricorn author Norman Maclean published his first novel, *A River Runs Through It*. It became a best-seller. Capricorn film director Takeshi Kitano directed his first film at age 42. Now 75, he has since won many awards for his work in his native Japan. Capricorn activist Melchora Aquino, who was a leader in the Philippines’ fight for independence from Spain, launched her career as a revolutionary when she was in her eighties. She’s known as the “Mother of the Revolution.” I hope these heroes inspire you, dear Capricorn. I believe that 2023 is the year you will get an upgrade in any area of your life where you have seemed to be a late bloomer.

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: According to my analysis of the astrological omens, you will soon be called upon to summon grace under pressure; to express magnanimity while being challenged; to prove that your devotion to your high standards is more important than the transitory agendas of your ego. The good news is that you are primed and ready to succeed at these exact assignments. I have confidence in your power to activate the necessary courage and integrity with maximum poise and composure.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: “By dying daily, I have come to be,” wrote poet Theodore Roethke. He didn’t mean he suffered literal deaths. He was referring to the discipline of letting go of the past; shedding worn-out habits; leaving behind theories and attitudes that once served him well but no longer did; killing off parts of himself that were interfering with the arrival of the fresh future. I recommend his strategy to you, Pisces. To the degree that you agree to die daily, you will earn the right to be reborn big-time in a few weeks.

by Dan Savage

Dear Dan: I’m married and it’s... OK. We’re more like friends raising our son together than anything else. There’s no sex, but I’m whatever about that. But I’ve had on and off feelings for a coworker and friend for a few years now. I don’t know if it’s love or lust or whatever. I thought if I admitted my feelings to my crush, it would help me figure things out. It didn’t. I thought it would go one of two ways. Either he would say he didn’t feel the same, avoid me, and I would move on and get over it, or he would lean into it — he would let me know he was interested — and I would talk things over with my husband and we would go from there. But nothing changed. When I told him he basically replied, “Oh, no worries,” and acted the same. We’re still friends, but that’s it. My husband would be down to open things up, I think, as we’ve talked about having a threesome before. But I don’t have any interest in doing that if my crush isn’t into me, because I’m really not interested in anyone else. And to add to the complications, my crush has a girlfriend. What the hell do I do?

ROBINSON

frequently see the term “ethical non-monogamy” used instead. What is the difference between the two if any at all?

—Pondering Over Linguistical Yens And Meanings

Dear POLYAM: Ethical non-monogamy (ENM) and polyamory don’t mean the same thing — indeed, a few years ago polyamorous folks were complaining about people who just wanted to fuck describing themselves as polyamorous, which is probably why someone came up with the term ENM.

Think of it like this: Bob and Carol decide to open their relationship on the condition that sex with other people be kept strictly casual — no repeats, no regulars, no feelings. So long as Bob and Carol honor the agreement they made with each other when they opened the relationship, and so long as Bob and Carol don’t mislead their casual sex partners, Bob and Carol are practicing non-monogamy in an ethical fashion. Bob and Carol are ENM, but they’re not poly.

—What Happens After This?

Dear WHAT: You’ve already done what a lot of people would’ve strongly urged you not to do: You hit on a coworker! A coworker in a relationship!

One of two things happened. You either hit on him so subtly he didn’t realize you were hitting on him, or he decided to pretend you didn’t hit on him because he isn’t interested.

If you want absolute clarity from him, WHAT, you’ll have to risk the dreaded direct question: “I hit on you the other day and ever since I’ve been wondering if that registered and, if it did, what you think.” (Good luck with HR if “no worries” was his way of saying “no thanks.”) Don’t wait any longer to talk things over with your husband. It’s better to have that conversation about opening up your marriage without the added pressure of a DTF crush waiting for you back at the office.

Dear Dan: Polyamory seems like a beautiful concept to me. However, where I used to see the word “polyamory,” I now

Ted and Alice, on the other hand, have a different agreement. They’re in love and committed to each other, but they’re dating other people and open to forming committed and concurrent romantic relationships with their other partners. So long as Ted and Alice are honoring the rules and conditions they set for themselves, they’re practicing non-monogamy in an ethical fashion. So, Ted and Alice, like Bob and Carol, are ENM, but they’re also poly.

While all healthy and functional polyamorous relationships are ENM, not all poly relationships are open relationships. Some triads, some quads, some quints, etc., are very much closed — they’re polyamorous and ENM, but no one else is going to be invited to join the shared Google calendar.

You shouldn’t assume that people who are ENM without being poly aren’t interested in love or fear intimacy. Two people can be very much in love, POLYAM, while having strict rules about keeping things casual with outside partners.

Questions to mailbox@savage.love More at Savage.Love!

ROMAN

Community coffee

Abo’s Coffee Bar opens as Caffè Sole closes its doors

by Colin Wrenn

No one was happy to hear about the abrupt closure of Caffè Sole at the tail end of last year. Since opening in 1994, the South Boulder coffee house served as an important center where locals could leisurely enjoy a cup, listen to some live music and have a third space to work, study or simply lounge. It was a revered institution.

Tyler Porritt, a Boulder local and owner of neighboring Abo’s Pizza South, was not going to take the closure lying down. So when former Caffè Sole barista and recent Ukrainian emigre Alex Simutkin proposed opening a coffee truck to fill the void, the two hatched a plan that quickly turned into Abo’s Coffee Bar.

Porritt invited Simutkin to open up shop in the front section of the pizza parlor’s large dining room. It took Simutkin, who had previously owned a woodworking business in Kyiv, six days to hand-construct the elegant bar that now serves a full selection of espresso drinks alongside fresh pastries made by his wife, Lena Simutkina. It opened for business on Dec. 20, serving the same Boxcar Coffee sold at Caffè Sole.

“The coffee literally hasn’t changed,” says Porritt. “I’ve been saying for years that there is no Abo’s Pizza without Caffè Sole.” Boxcar Coffee is set to take over the Caffè Sole space as early as March of this year.

Abo’s is also an institution. The first one was opened on The Hill by Steve Abo in 1977. There are currently 10 Abo’s locations with nine independent owners across the Front Range. Porritt became the proprietor of Abo’s South around three and a half years ago, after working at the location since 2010. During his early days slinging pies, he also coached soccer for the Boulder High soccer team. It’s clear that much of what Porritt does is still underpinned by a desire to lend a hand

ON THE MENU: Tyler Porritt, owner of Abo’s Pizza South (637 S. Broadway St., Boulder) has teamed up with former Caffè Sole barista Alex Simutkin to launch Abo’s Coffee. Caffè Sole closed permanently at the end of 2022.

SUSAN FRANCE

to people from all walks of life. “Pizza’s my medium to do the other things. To be part of the community, to help people,” he says. “A lot of that goes back to coaching.”

In addition to assembling pies, making deliveries and being present in the dining room, Porritt puts his money where his mouth is for both local and international communities in need. After the Marshall Fire, he began collecting donations and giving food to survivors. He started the program after a regular suggested it and offered up a sizable starting contribution. Porritt says the location managed to give away roughly $10,000 worth of free food over the course of a twomonth period. This is on top of the regular Tuesday night fundraisers Abo’s South hosts for local elementary schools in which 10% of sales are donated to Mesa, Creekside, Bear Mountain and Community Montessori schools. Each school gets a night every month throughout the duration of the school year.

Porritt and Simutkin plan to donate 22% of all profits from Abo’s Coffee Bar directly to Ukrainian families.

Simutkin was born in Russia and moved to Kyiv when he was three years old. As an adult he spent 10 years bartending across Moscow, Kyiv, Malta and Italy before returning to the Ukrainian capital to open Handmade Espresso Bar. Over the course of six years, Simutkin expanded the business into four locations across the city. In the summer of 2020, he shut down the shops, opting to open a woodworking studio. “Ninety percent of my orders were made for restaurants and coffee shops,” he says, noting that during his time he had become well acquainted with the growing dining scene. He arrived in Boulder on June 15 of last year, fleeing the war to meet his brother who already lived in town. He says he was considering moving to Canada before the April announcement of the Uniting for Ukraine program convinced him to

move stateside. Within 10 days of arriving, he was pouring at Caffè Sole.

Currently, Simutkin is the sole operator, serving coffee seven days a week beginning each morning at 6:30. He says more than half of Caffè Sole’s regulars have already started turning up at Abo’s. He and Porritt only plan to keep the project running until Boxcar opens next door.

Simutkina’s pastries are one of the place’s biggest draws. The daily selection features a rotating cast of cookies, cinnamon rolls, muffins and cakes that draw on traditional Ukrainian styles, but made sweeter, Sumtkin says, to line up with the American palate. The strudel is not to be missed.

On the pizza side of things, Abo’s is set to offer a few new menu items, including a green chile pizza featuring either pork or veggie Casa Alvarez Chile Verde, a product from the line of home goods that continues the tradition established by the much-touted and now-closed eatery of the same name. To complement the coffee, breakfast pies with bacon and eggs are also set to join the roster in the coming weeks.

SUSAN FRANCE

Whether the sun is shining or snow is falling, our little corner of Pearl Street is the perfect place to soak up winter in beautiful Boulder! Feast alongside the jellyfish, sink into a lounge or take a seat at one of our lively bars.

Prefer the great outdoors? Our fireside patios are the coziest place to savor those mild winter days.

When your own couch is calling, all of your favorites are available for curbside pickup too.

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

With a new year kicking in and some folks looking for ways to enjoy the pleasures of a craft beverage without the booze component, Boulder’s Hoplark provides a bevy of refreshing and increasingly popular alternatives to beer.

The 4-and-a-half-year-old beverage company (3220 Prairie Ave.), founded by friends Dean Eberhardt and Andrew Markley, started selling its popular HopTea at places like the Boulder Farmers Market. Early customers responded enthusiastically to its alcohol-free brews that blended simple ingredients.

“The tea is brewed like craft beer and hopped like craft beer,” says Toni German, marketing director at Hoplark. “It’s sparkling tea paired with hops to create flavors like a West Coast IPA and other more mellow [IPA] varieties. There’s no alcohol content, but people will try them as a beer replacement at first, and then they’ll find other uses for the beverage throughout their day. Some of them have caffeine and some don’t.”

Varieties of Hoplark tea include The Calm One, a chamomile-based and non-caffeinated best-seller; Citra Bomb One, which includes white tea and has a low level of caffeine (30 mg); and Really Hoppy One, which offers a little more caffeine (about 60-70 mg). The HopTea line also features The Green One, incorporating green tea, and limited editions such as The Cacao Mint One.

Hoplark has been operating and steadily growing since 2018, and began selling a line of hop-infused sparkling waters directly from its website in 2021. The sparkling waters, which come in three different flavors, were an immediate hit and in 2022 Hoplark

began distributing the drinks nationally through Whole Foods. The sparkling gluten-, calorie- and alcohol-free waters include Sabro, Citrus and Mosaic-hopped versions, as well as several limited-edition releases and collaborations.

The company also offers its double-dryhopped 0.0 Citra, which competes in the non-alcoholic beer category. German says Hoplark now produces 25,000 barrels worth of its beverages annually.

“Our special hopping process is a proprietary technology that we use that has the ability to really bring out the distinct hop flavors in the sparkling beverages,” German says. “In our process, there is no fermentation involved, so there is [zero] alcohol in them. And there’s no malt in them, so there’s no gluten.”

German says about two-thirds of the company’s customers are craft beer lovers, or “hop heads,” who enjoy both alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, with approximately a third of its customer base being people who previously enjoyed craft beer but who have decided to cut it out of their lives for various reasons.

“We appeal mostly to the craft beer-lovers market, but we’re also a great option for those who are looking to get alcohol out of their diet completely. We usually see a good spike in sales in the month of January, when people are trying to go into the new year with better habits or just a fresh start.”

Hoplark beverages are available in 12- and 16-ounce cans and can be purchased through hoplark.com as well as from select retailers, including Whole

Climbing the learning curve

f there is one argument that opponents of legal cannabis like to fall back on, it’s that “there’s not enough research to know the effects.”

And to be fair, they’re right. In fact, that’s one of the few things about cannabis that prohibitionists and proponents of legalization can agree on: We need more scientifi c research on the effects of cannabis. Especially as more states legalize it medicinally and recreationally, and more people start using it regularly, we need to fully understand the health effects (both positive and negative) of using this plant.

The problem is a catch-22: We cannot do more legitimate scientifi c research on the effects of cannabis until the federal government de-schedules, decriminalizes or outright legalizes it. And without that research, that tired old argument against cannabis remains viable.

But that defense is losing steam,

and quickly. For the second year in a row, there were more scientifi c papers published on cannabis than ever before.

According to the National Library of Medicine (NLM), in 2022 there were more than 4,300 peer-reviewed cannabis research papers published. That follows the previous record of 4,200 from 2021. To put that into perspective, between 1990 and1999 there were only 3,000 cannabis specifi c papers published in the entire decade.

“Despite claims by some that marijuana has yet to be subject to adequate scientifi c scrutiny, scientists’ interest in studying cannabis has increased exponentially in recent years,” NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano says. “As has our understanding of the plant, its active constituents, their mechanisms of action, and their effects on both the user and upon society.”

A cursory search of the term “cannabis” on the NLM website yields tens

of thousands of results. Some highlights from 2022 include one study published in Cannabis Cannabinoid Research titled “Cannabidiol Reduced the Severity of Gastrointestinal Symptoms of Opioid Withdrawal in Male and Female Mice.” It found that doses of cannabidiol (CBD) not only improved gastrointestinal symptoms of opioid-addicted mice, but it also reduced their symptoms of withdrawal.

Another study from the 2022 lineup, “Cannabis Use Among Lower-Extremity Arthroplasty Patients Does Not Lead to Worse Postoperative Outcomes,” was published in Cereus . It explored the current medical stigma that smoking cannabis is linked to increased postoperative complications following total knee arthroplasty and total hip arthroplasty.

That paper concluded, “The present study suggests that cannabis-using patients have no difference in postoperative complication rate, revision rate, PROMIS scores, hospital stay, or pain compared to matched controls.”

A third study, published in the International Journal of Molecular Science , looked at how cannabis could treat dysmenorrhoea (3period pain). That study, “Dysmenorrhoea: Can Medicinal Cannabis Bring New Hope for a Collective Group of Women Suffering in Pain, Globally?,” concludes that there are signifi cant and “promising” applications for cannabis to treat dysmenorrhoea. Then there are papers exploring

how cannabis can help treatment-resistant epileptic seizures in children. There are papers on how medicinal cannabis improves sleep among adults with insomnia. There were even papers published in 2022 on the effi cacy of treating COVID-19 with cannabinoids.

Not all of the research from 2022 was positive. There were plenty of studies on cannabis use during pregnancy that indicated negative effects. Like one study published in Forensic Science International that found a link between cannabis use during pregnancy and cerebral malformations and fetal death.

Positive or negative, these fi ndings are essential to our understanding of this complicated plant. And while the pace of research is starting to pick up, it’s still being held back by severe federal rules and restrictions. Because it is a federally illegal substance, any study done on it needs to be approved by the Federal Drug Administration (FDA). And any approved study may use only cannabis provided by the government from the National Institute on Drug Abuse — which, if you follow this column, you’ll know is such bad weed it actually qualifi es as a different plant altogether (Weed Between the Lines, “Strains of NIDA” Nov. 24, 2021).

Despite those barriers, research is happening. Our knowledge of this plant is growing exponentially. The argument that there’s not enough research on cannabis to know if it’s safe or not has less ground to stand on every year.

“It is time for politicians and others to stop assessing cannabis through the lens of ‘what we don’t know,’” Armentano says. “And instead start engaging in evidence-based discussions about marijuana and marijuana reform policies that are indicative of all we do know.”

In 2022, more cannabis research papers were published than ever before, giving prohibition one less argument to stand on by Will Brendza