Boulder Weekly 12.15.2022

The wild and unwieldy collections of local garage sale legend Joel Haertling get the gallery treatment at Boulder Public Library

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Dec. 15, 2022

Volume XXX, number 18

Cover: Sarah Chesnutt

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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Wildlife watching has been getting a free ride

by Kelsey Wellington

There’s a new initiative in Wyoming that’s changing the face of wildlife conservation funding, and it’s already seen huge success in its rst year.

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It’s based on the state’s startling mountains, rivers lled with sh and forests where bears and wolves roam — everything that makes Wyoming unrivaled. at wildlife is managed by the Wyoming Game and Fish Department, and 85% of the cost is funded by hunters and anglers. is happens largely through the sale of hunting and shing licenses, as well as taxes on related sporting goods through the Pittman-Robertson and Dingell-Johnson Acts.

But as we all know, hunters and anglers aren’t the only people fascinated by wildlife. e number one reason people travel to Wyoming is to view wild animals, and wildlife watching alone accounts for almost half a billion dollars in state revenue. It also employs over 10,000 people.

Yet the tourism industry that I’m part of as a wildlife guide contributes very little when it comes to funding wildlife conservation.

Taylor Phillips, owner of EcoTour Adventures in Jackson, Wyoming, felt this gap was unfair and wanted to do something about it. Since founding his business in 2008, Phillips has donated more than $115,000 to nonpro ts

that work to conserve the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem.

Phillips says he expected other wildlife tourism businesses to follow his lead, but very few did. Wanting to change the narrative, Phillips partnered with Chris McBarnes, president of e WYldlife Fund, a partner foundation to the Game and Fish Department that helps fund wildlife projects across Wyoming. Together, the two men created Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow, a nonpro t that funds conservation by targeting businesses and people that depend on wildlife to make their living.

ese are the companies that run wildlife tours, and the hotels, restaurants and shops that cater to wildlife watchers.

By tapping into this tourism constituency, the new group has “enormous potential to change the face of funding wildlife conservation in Wyoming,” says Phillips. Diane Shober, executive director of the Wyoming O ce of Tourism, agrees, calling Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow “a crucial initiative” for wildlife conservation, especially as hunting revenues decline.

Donations are collected from both individuals and businesses through Wildlife Tourism’s website, and donors have the option to select the conservation projects their money helps.

One project currently in need of funding is the restoration of sagebrush steppe in Grand Teton National Park. In the early 1900s, several thousand acres of land in the park were cultivated for hay production, which fragmented habitat for wildlife. Since 2009, the park has been working to restore 4,500 acres of former hay elds to sagebrush and grasses, a multi-year project with an annual budget of over $400,000. Funding through Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow donations helps keep the project going.

e nonpro t also uses the money

it raises to build wildlife crossings on highways and install wildlife-friendly fencing along migration corridors. Other contributions go toward restoring wetlands and radio-collaring elk for scienti c study.

Usually, projects that help wildlife are designed by organizations such as Trout Unlimited, the U.S. Forest Service and the Rocky Mountain Elk Foundation. Project developers then partner with other interested groups to seek funding through the state’s underfunded Game and Fish Department. Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow steps in to help ll the gaps in funding.

Since October of 2021, Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow has donated over $125,000 that was collected from 68 businesses and dozens of individuals. One of its projects with Trout Unlimited in 2020 contributed $20,000 to keep spawning cutthroat trout

from getting trapped in an irrigation system.

Trout Unlimited’s Leslie Steen appreciated the help: “I’ve seen wildlife tour trips in the area and it is really neat to think that those same businesses are now giving back to native sh.”

Wildlife Tourism for Tomorrow has grown quickly in its rst year, and support from Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon has given it more visibility. Meanwhile, Phillips has spent a lot of time spreading the word that people who love wildlife need to step up. For too long, hunters and anglers have been doing the heavy lifting.

Just a suggestion, other Western states, but maybe it’s time to get on board.

Kelsey Wellington is a contributor to Writers on the Range, and a wildlife guide in Grand Teton and Yellowstone national parks. is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.

DACA and the politics of cruelty by Andrew Moss

It wasn’t long ago that we awoke to images and stories of families separated at the border, of migrant children locked into dirty, crowded, chain-link pens. For many Americans, this was an alarming introduction to the politics of cruelty that have played out in di erent periods of American immigration history, but with particular force in the past years. Today that politics is moving back into the media spotlight. As I write this, it’s not yet clear whether DACA, the program created to protect from deportation the young people brought here as children, will last much longer. In response to a lawsuit brought by the attorney general of Texas and several other states, a federal judge ruled last year that the program was illegal, and his ruling was upheld this past October by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit. Unless legislation is passed during this year’s waning congressional session to extend the protections a orded to DACA recipients, the case may go to the Supreme Court, where its

prospects would be dim.

If DACA is ended, it’s unlikely that the 590,000 young people currently protected by the program will be deported, but they would no longer have the federal protections that have allowed them to work and secure other bene ts. ey would be pushed back into the shadows and precarity of undocumented status.

at is where the politics of cruelty come in. is kind of politics is not only about policies like family separation, which were intentionally designed to in ict su ering and ostensibly “deter” migrants from coming to the U.S. e politics of cruelty also incorporate a language, a discourse, that casts migrants in dehumanizing terms (“illegal aliens”), presents them as threats to Americans’ physical and economic security, and excludes any reference to America’s need for immigration to maintain a robust economy and revitalize communities.

ere is every good reason to extend protection, indeed, permanent status, to DACA recipients, and no

ADAM WILLOUGHBY-KNOX VIA UNSPLASH

good reason to deny it. With the umbrella of the program protecting them since 2012, DACA recipients have been able to go to college, enter professional careers, start families, buy homes, serve as essential workers during the pandemic, and pay their fair share of federal and state taxes.

In short, America is their home, and they have every right to a permanent status that legislation can bring. at is why major political organizations like the U.S. Conference of Mayors have supported such protections, and why business organizations like the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have called for legislative action on the recipients’ behalf. Polling data from recent years has consistently shown that a majority of American voters support the continuation of DACA or permanent status for DACA recipients.

PROTECTING DACA RECIPIENTS

and pay raises for border agents. It also would provide for the creation of regional “processing centers” that would house asylum seekers and ostensibly expedite the processing of their asylum requests. Until such centers would be operational, a Trump-era policy known as Title 42 would remain in e ect, turning migrants back to Mexico and preventing them from ling asylum claims. is policy had been set to expire Dec. 21.

Certainly, protecting DACA, or giving a pathway to permanent status for DACA recipients in this congressional session, represents a contraction of the original, ambitious Biden administration goal of extending a path to citizenship to the 11.5 million undocumented individuals in America. is contraction only goes to show the power of the opposition to substantive reform. Still, in light of this opposition, the achievement of legislated protection for 590,000 people would represent a signi cant accomplishment indeed.

As of now, a proposed “bipartisan framework,” co-created by Senators Kyrsten Sinema (I-Arizona) and om Tillis (R-North Carolina), is oating in the Senate. It would provide a path to legalization for DACA recipients, but it would also be accompanied by border security measures that include an additional $25-$40 billion for increased sta ng

Protecting DACA recipients is a standalone human rights issue that should have no place in negotiations over border security, particularly when those negotiations involve the suppression of other migrants’ rights. at said, there remains formidable opposition even to the Sinema/Tillis framework, an opposition forti ed by the libuster rule that requires a 60-vote supermajority in the Senate. If the current Congress, with its substantial Democratic House majority, fails to extend protection to DACA and its recipients, the failure will represent a victory for the politics of cruelty, a politics powered by demagoguery and the fears it generates.

It will mean, too, that the struggle for human rights will continue, sparked by the kind of organizing and truth-telling that helped push DACA into existence a decade ago. And it will mean, more clearly than ever, that it’s time for the libuster, that onerous impediment to democracy, to be relegated to the dustbin of history.

Andrew Moss, syndicated by PeaceVoice, is an emeritus professor (English, Nonviolence Studies) at the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona. is opinion column does not necessarily re ect the views of Boulder Weekly.

Boulder County’s rst-ever Climate Innovation Fund distributes more than $500K in grants

by Will Matuska

Earlier this month, Boulder County announced the recipients of its Climate Innovation Fund, which is dispersing more than $500,000 to ve projects addressing climate change locally though nature-based solutions, carbon dioxide removal and landscape restoration.

From wild re to poor air quality and more days of extreme heat, “we all know that the climate crisis is already impacting everyday life in Boulder County,” says Susie Strife, director of Boulder County’s O ce of Sustainability, Climate Action and Resilience (OSCAR).

Grantees went through a competitive process — more than 2 million applications were received and reviewed by 17 local and national experts in climate research, carbon sequestration, carbon removal technology and nature-based solutions. e recipients are Biochar Now, Boulder Watershed Collective, Drylands Agroecology Research (DAR), Ollin Farms and Takachar.

Each grantee was awarded at least $90,000 to support ongoing work.

“If we’re serious about supporting the actual solutions for climate change, we really need to foster the innovative solutions here, right on the ground in Boulder County,” Strife says.

Nature-based solutions uphold natural features or processes in built environments to increase capacity for adaptation and resilience to climate change. e grantees of the Climate Innovation Fund utilize soil, plants, biochar, native mycelium, wood debris, and livestock to sequester carbon, increase water retention, minimize re risks and bolster biodiversity.

“ e beauty of DAR’s work is that we are

using nature’s wisdom to set in motion agricultural ecosystems that function like natural ecosystems,” said DAR’s Amy Scanes-Wolfe in a press release. Longmont-based DAR is working to transform degraded landscapes into agro-ecosystems through biodiversity and soil carbon sequestration. e fund prioritized granting local projects: three are in Boulder County and one is in Berthoud. Takachar is located in Boston, Massachusetts.

ing its status as a hub for nature-based solution projects.

“Grounding innovation and technology development through a place-based approach can advance equity and amplify outcomes that respond best to our community’s needs,” said Boulder County Commissioner Marta Loachamin in a press release, “which is why the County selected projects that will have positive local impacts and community co-bene ts.”

With these funds, Boulder County is bolster-

Hidden in a pill or powder, only 2 milligrams of fentanyl is considered a potentially lethal dose. at’s the weight of a typical mosquito.

Nick Goldberger has 12 years of experience with the Boulder County Drug Task Force. In 2020, he started to see the consequences of more fentanyl entering the county.

“If you do not get a drug from a pharmacist, you’re taking a chance,” says Goldenberger. “You’re making a bad choice because there are pills out there that will kill you, and they have [killed].” ere were seven accidental fentanyl deaths in

“What’s so unique about our community is that there are so many incredible, passionate and knowledgeable people wanting to do this work,” says Strife. “And what I love about Boulder County’s initiative here is it’s an invitation and a celebration of our local strengths and assets that we have here in Boulder County. at to me is such a sign of resilience and moving toward a future that we all want in terms of a healthier planet.”

IN THE DIRT:

DAR’s earthworks team conducted a pilot study on 14 acres that showed a 200% increase in soil organic matter and an 85% survival rate of 950 fruit and nurse tress without irrigation.

e Climate Innovation Fund is supported through the Sustainability Tax ballot initiative passed by voters in November 2016. Strife says the fund will be available annually, but the type of projects they look for could change. She expects the amount of money in the fund to remain the same, or even increase down the road.

“Given our commitment to climate action, we are planning on supporting these sort of climate pioneers or climate innovators in our community, so we want to continue this funding,” she says.

Strife is also part of a group writing a white paper about how local governments can invest in this type of community development and local climate solutions.

“So that’s an exciting next step for this work,” she says, “to showcase how a community like ours can launch this type of fund.”

2021, according to the Boulder County Coroner’s O ce. Goldenberger says the drug task force has 20 active investigations, and most of them are fentanyl-related deaths.

On Dec. 2, law enforcement seized almost 45 pounds of a fentanyl and cocaine mixture in Longmont. Alberto Reyes-Carrillo, who has ties with the Sinaloa Cartel, was arrested and is being held on a $500,000 bond.

e U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration says one kilogram (equal to two pounds) of fentanyl has the potential to kill 500,000 people.

According to Goldenberger, most of the fentan-

COURTESY BOULDER COUNTY

Forty- ve pounds of fentanyl mixture seized in Longmont shows more work to be done by Will Matuska

yl coming to this area is from Mexico. He’s glad to see nearly 50 pounds of fentanyl mixture o the streets.

“ at amount of fentanyl, whether it’s straight fentanyl or fentanyl mixture will — it’s not a could — will kill people,” he says. “It would have killed people, I don’t know a number, but one is already too many.”

Fentanyl is cheaper, creates more powerful highs and drives greater addiction and more purchases. Goldenberger compares pills laced with fentanyl to chocolate chip cookies — once the ingredients are all combined and put on a baking sheet, some cookies have more chocolate chips than others, the same way some fentanyl-laced pills have more fentanyl than others.

“When you get any of the cookies with more chocolate chips, which equates to a pill that has more than two milligrams of fentanyl, somebody’s probably going to die,” Goldenberger says.

District Attorney Michael Dougherty says the amount of fentanyl seized in Longmont was unusually large for Boulder County, because packages of that size often get broken up before reaching the Denver metro area.

“It’s my hope that law enforcement taking this

o the streets is going to put a dent in how much fentanyl is coming into this community,” Dougherty says. “However, to be realistic, that’s just short term. And long term, we have a lot of work to do to help people who are struggling with addiction, and to get more programs for treatment and harm reduction in place.”

Now, Dougherty is focused on both the prosecution of Reyes-Carrillo, and the ongoing investigation to learn more about where he was coming from and where he was heading.

If convicted, Dougherty says Reyes-Carrillo faces a “very lengthy” state prison sentence. His court process is now underway, and he will have a hearing in the coming weeks.

More resources are now going toward ghting the fentanyl crisis in Boulder County and the state.

Since October of this year, Goldenberger says the County’s drug task force has been using the Overdose Mapping and Application Program, or ODMAP, a website that gives real-time data on overdoses and deaths. Before ODMAP, the task force sometimes had to wait six months or even a year for up-to-date data to inform decision making.

As of Nov. 29, law enforcement agencies across the state can now apply for funding through the state’s Synthetic Opiate Poisoning Investigation and Distribution Interdiction Grant Program, which has $6.9 million available to help investigate fentanyl death, injury and distribution.

“[ e grant program] is a really comprehensive approach to helping our community survive the fentanyl crisis,” Dougherty says. “It’s not something we’re going to simply incarcerate our way out of — that would be a mistake.”

SHOP THE BEST

This magic moment

ahead of annual showcase

by Adam Perry

isa Siciliano has certainly grown up from the days when she first fell in love with music as a kid in Ohio — having since developed a remarkable career as a celebrated Boulder rock-concert photographer — but it’s a hoot to listen to her geek out on the musical heroes of her youth. Van Halen’s 1978 party-on-wax debut album, she says, “brings me right back to high school and everything I love about rock ‘n’ roll.”

Over the last 25 years shooting concerts — always on film, almost always in black-andwhite — Siciliano has been smelling-distance away from many of the artists she grew up admiring, from the Van Halen brothers themselves to Pete Townshend and B.B. King. She’s also forged many relationships with local bands before they became stars, establishing herself as a vital part of the Colorado music scene in the process. She’s a fixture in the photo pit at Red Rocks, the Pepsi Center and really any renowned venue you can name.

Siciliano’s career behind the lens will come into focus during her 14th annual Rocking in a Winter Wonderland at Vapor Distillery on Dec. 17. It’s a party with live music, showcasing her concert photography. (She also does wedding and graduation photos, family portraits and more under the banner Dog Daze Photo.) She sells everything from small, discounted prints to framed wall-sized shots meant to be the centerpiece of a music lover’s home.

In a recent sit-down interview, Siciliano — who got her first camera from Kmart at 10 years old — pored over five of her favorite concert photos from the last two-and-ahalf decades and described not just the works themselves, but the moments behind them.

“I always like when there’s a movement, up or down, because it’s something different. You’re just feeling the song. Sometimes, too, they’ll repeat that kind of motion and you’re, like, ‘OK, when he gets to this part again, he’s gonna do something interesting.’ It was kind of like that; it was kind of like the ending of a song, and endings of songs are usually good. That was at Mile High Music Festival, and he was the headliner there. He also just looks really into it, to me, in that picture — really focused.”

“This is a perfect example of where the light technician comes in, because that shot would be cool in itself, but the lights — the ways they’re coming down around him — just make it a thousand times cooler. I have four shots of that same [moment], because he stood there for a minute, but that one is the shot because of the lights coming down and the light in his eyes. And it’s just so rock ‘n’ roll. Everything about that is perfect to me.”

“This was one of those shots where it was like, ‘OK, I got it,’ and that was right when [Red Hot Chili Peppers] came out. He came out and started the show and I was like, ‘I don’t even need to shoot anymore.’ Of course I did, but I knew. I knew I got it. I also like these kinds of photos where it’s not obvious who it is, but if you look at it you’re gonna know it’s Flea, if you know. I love the reflection on the shiny floor …It looks like a street that’s all slick.”

Boulder rock-concert photographer Lisa Siciliano breaks down five of her favorite images

LTom Petty: Mile High Music Festival at Dick’s Sporting Goods Park (Commerce City), 2008

Flea (Red Hot Chili Peppers): Pepsi Center (Denver), 2012

George Clinton: Ogden Theatre (Denver), 2018

Dolly Parton: Red Rocks Amphitheatre (Morrison), 2016

“It’s just so Dolly, right? I have some of her playing guitar from that concert that I like a lot. This one, though … she just looks friendly and inviting, and you wanna go to her house and eat some biscuits, you know? [Laughs] It’s like the quintessential Dolly Parton. She was very excited that night. That was right before she started singing ‘Jolene.’ … When it’s a song I love, I have to make sure I’m not moving around, especially because that was from the soundboard and I was hand-holding a 300 [mm lens]. She’s amazing — especially at that age. It sounded just like the record.”

David Crosby: Boulder Theater, 2017

“It’s intense, and I like the half-shadow thing, too. I’m a big fan of half-lit faces. … It was a really special concert … his voice still sounded the same, and that picture, I just absolutely could feel how into it he was. That was probably the best I’ve seen him solo, and I’ve photographed him a bunch. I photographed him with Crosby, Stills and Nash at Red Rocks when I first became house photographer [there] back in the late ’90s. …He was [backstage] like, ‘Is this the house photographer? She won’t do.’ I was freaking out. I was like, ‘What’s wrong with this guy?’ And he said, ‘She’s much too beautiful. She’s gonna distract me.’ He’s such a jokester guy. He’s a ham. He’s kind of an asshole at the same time, but cool. He doesn’t give a shit; it’s just who he is. I love that picture.”

ON THE BILL: Rocking in a Winter Wonderland: Rock Art Show and Sale by Lisa Siciliano, featuring live music from Koret with special guest David Hinojosa. 5-10 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Vapor Distillery, 5311 Western Ave., Suite 180, Boulder

Space cowboy

Boulder icon Ted Thacker returns as The Red Tack on ‘Judy’ by Adam Perry

Ted Thacker grew up in Boulder, so he’s seen the town change from its weird punk-rock past to its idyllic-yet-complicated present. The 56-year-old singer-songwriter’s upbringing was very different from the progressive way he’s raising his own daughter, and yet one of his favorite childhood memories is of seeing Kiss at McNichols Arena when he was 12.

“My dad begrudgingly got us the tickets and took us to the show. He couldn’t stand it. He put stuff in his ears and stood down in the aisle, down below. The air was just filled with weed smoke, and it was mostly smelly dudes in leather jackets, and then me and my friend Eric,” he says. “My dad made us leave before the encore, and that, for Kiss, is the core of their show. That’s when the risers come up and the panther comes out of the drum set. I was pissed at my dad for the next five years.”

Thacker remembers the severe emotional pain of hearing “Detroit Rock City” fading away as his father walked him out of McNichols Arena. Those next five years, though, were filled with ambitious musical experiences inspired in part by the flamboyant Kiss concert his father had somehow agreed to take him to. Thacker and his young friends wrote boatloads of songs in various bands around Boulder — generally playing a creative, outlandish mixture of punk and glam — that eventually became the legendary Baldo Rex, which took Thacker to both American coasts and everywhere between with relentless touring.

Punk was having its first big moment in the U.S. when Thacker’s teenage band, The Plague, became his life. At just 12 years old, Thacker and his bandmates played one of their first shows at Gate 19 of Folsom Field in Boulder and called it the “Annual Sid Vicious Memorial Dance,” just months after the death of the iconic Sex Pistols bassist. That kind of ridiculous ambition carried on as Baldo Rex made waves across the country in the 1990s with a weird-and-wild stage show and aggressive acid-punk sound.

Thacker still gets weird, wild and loud on stage as The Red Tack — a sort of glam-cowboy solo project he launched about five years ago after decades of collaborating in critically acclaimed bands like Baldo Rex and Veronica. One of his claims to fame is “I Cried Like a Silly Boy,” a beloved DeVotchKa staple written by Thacker. But his own material is more rock ‘n’ roll than the Denver quartet, as evidenced by the new Red Tack album, Judy, which lies somewhere between Ziggy Stardust and the Pixies.

As jangly, spacey and quirky as Thacker’s music can get, the kid smelling marijuana for the first time as Kiss bashes through “Strutter” is very much present on Judy Thacker embraces thumping drums and fuzzy guitars as much as Ween-style weirdness on tracks like “Los Angeles,” but under it all is the quality songwriting that has earned Thacker the respect and friendship of many of Colorado music’s hosusehold names.

Thacker brought along some of those talented friends on Judy, after playing all the instruments on the first Red Tack album, 2017’s (K)night of the Sorrowful Face. Jeffrey Mince, John Call, Billy Pigati and Dave Willey all pitched in on drums for at least a track, and Andrew Koch played bass on the churning space-rocker “Roving Satellites.” Other than that, the versatile Thacker (who says he played “something like 100 instruments” on the first Red Tack album) played everything on Judy, which he’ll celebrate with a release show on Dec. 17 at the Lion’s Lair in Denver.

“I thought, ‘Eventually I’m gonna want a band. I’m not just gonna want to play by myself,’ because it’s not enough. I need other musicians to come along and lift me and play with me,” Thacker says. “I love playing all of the instruments when I record, because I can find musical paths that I wouldn’t have found normally, but I feel

like the drummer is the glue behind every good song, and having four of Denver’s best on this record was really an amazing addition.”

But while Judy is a distinctly Front Range affair, the album — which took two years to finish and was produced and engineered by Kyle Jones — was partly inspired by Thacker’s embryonic days in Boston with Baldo Rex.

ON THE BILL: The Red Tack with Redwing Blackbird. 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Lion’s Lair, 2022 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $10, holdmyticket.com

“‘Judy’ is actually an older song that I wrote about Boston,” Thacker explains. “It’s about a woman in Boston who was breaking the heart of the lead singer of my band [Baldo Rex] at the time, but also she was fantastic. She was the lead singer of this band called Salem 66. Just dashingly beautiful, and we were 18 or 19 and she was 30 — so she was, like, a woman. She would come to our parties and freak us out, because she was like a movie star to us.

“Years later, back when I was remembering our life, I remembered her, and I was trying to find her — and I couldn’t find her. I still can’t,” Thacker continues. “I still don’t know where she is. So I wrote that song. To me, that’s the most outstanding part of the record … that feeling of remembering your past and trying to romanticize it and be part of it.”

But while the past looms large over Judy, Thacker says his new record is more than a wistful look at what once was. It also contains all of what is important to him in the here and now.

“All of my friends are in this album,” he says. “All of my life is in this album.”

‘Truly madly deeply’

‘Clink, Clink’

Heat up some Pizza Rolls, grab a Capri Sun and head to the world premiere of Clink, Clink, a decade-spanning millennial love story between two childhood friends. Currently running at the University of Denver Black Box through Dec. 18, the sophomore effort from 2¢ Lion Theatre Company investigates two young women’s exploration of identity and the changes in their relationship as they grow up.

Written by local playwright and 2¢ Lion executive director Kevin Douglas, the play follows Elliot (Izzy Chern) and Olivia (Gracie Jacobson) from age 7 in 1994 to age 35 in present-day 2022. The narrative unfolds throughout eight vignettes depicting key moments of their past, all set in Elliot’s childhood bedroom.

Both Chern and Jacobson are real-life friends offstage, which helps them depict their relaxed, comfortable friendship. Elliot is portrayed by Chern as confident, a little sarcastic, incredibly well-intentioned, and hopelessly in love with her best friend. Elliot has always been confident in her sexuality as a lesbian, but runs away from relationships when things get too serious. Though Elliot presents as a woman, she is increasingly uncomfortable with the rigidity of gender roles, particularly when she realizes she has no desire to fit into a monogamous, heteronormative relationship.

But this idyllic, suburban fantasy is exactly the kind of life Olivia wants. Not nearly as self-assured as Elliot, Jacobson plays Olivia as a control freak who identifies as bisexual and is trying to figure out how to be true to her desires while also creating the life (with a house, a loving partner and children) she's always dreamed of. Rather than disappoint others and have hard conversations, Olivia skirts the uncomfortable questions.

Douglas' script, often as funny as it is heartbreaking, explores their love for one another and their opposing views on happiness. Fundamentally, despite their shared queer identities and lifelong friendship, the two women have different visions of what they want in life. Elliot seeks an adventurous lifestyle in a tight-knit community that doesn’t conform neatly to societal expectations, while Olivia is in a hurry to settle down and start a family.

Though the pop culture references and music the characters share with each other change as time passes throughout the play, the same dynamic — Olivia’s clear vision of a nuclear family and Elliot’s clear lack of interest in this life but willingness to play along — continues for the next 28 years.

Anyone who grew up in the ’90s will feel a surge of nostalgia seeing the era of their childhood represented onstage in Clink, Clink. Each of the eight scenes begins with a mini-musical trip down memory lane — an edit of music, movie and television quotes, news headlines and other memorable sound bites from the year each scene takes place — that put the audience in the cultural headspace of the time.

Wes Mysinger dresses the actors in a variety of era-appropriate fashion trends while Merit Wiley's set design is sharply updated throughout to reflect Elliot’s evolving interests as she grows up. Director Tamarra Nelson’s poignant staging provides the container for Chern and Jacobson to deliver two moving performances you’ll be thinking about for days.

ON STAGE: Clink, Clink by Kevin Douglas. Various times through Dec. 18, University of Denver Black Box, Johnson McFarlane Hall, 1901 East Iliff Ave. Tickets: pay-what-you-can ($1030), twocentlion.com

Nineties nostalgia trip

is a thoughtful new love story about the many facets of queer experience

by Toni Tresca

BOULDER

★ LICENSE NO. 1 NEW YEAR’S EVE PARTY

8-11:55 p.m. License No. 1, 2115 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $25, license1boulderado.com

Dress to impress for the last night of 2022 at License No. 1’s New Year’s Eve Party. Attendees will get treated to live music, a champagne toast and late night food in downtown Boulder.

★ LOTUS NEW YEAR’S EVE — NIGHT 2

9 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. Tickets: $35-$150, axs.com

Lotus is a five-piece instrumental band that has been together for more than 20 years. They’ll bring their high energy dance music to Boulder Theater on New Year’s Eve.

★ NEW YEAR’S EVE CELEBRATION WITH

FUNKIPHINO

9 p.m. St Julien Hotel & Spa, 900 Walnut St., Boulder. Tickets: $125-$175, eventbrite.com

Ring in 2023 with style at St Julien’s New Year’s Eve celebration, headlined by Funkiphino. A ticket will get you access to an open premium bar, appetizers, balloon drop and a champagne toast.

★ NEW YEAR’S EVE DANCE PARTY

7 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Tickets: $45, goldhillinn.com

The $45 ticket includes performances by Banshee Tree and Rob Pate Trio at the Gold Hill Inn

Barroom Stage, a light dinner buffet, champagne at midnight and beads. The buffet is served 7-9 p.m., and the music starts at 8 p.m.

★ HOUNDMOUTH WITH WILDERMISS

9 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $35-$40, axs.com

This American alternative rock band from Indiana is known for their nostalgic sounds and unique take on storytelling through music. Check out the quartet at the Fox.

★ OUTWORLD BREWING’S NEW YEAR’S EVE

9 a.m.-9 p.m. Outworld Brewing, 1725 Vista View Drive, Suite B., Longmont. Tickets: $40-$60, eventbrite.com

Outworld Brewing is closing out their Jazz and Funk Series on New Year’s Eve. This all-day event will have both a New Year’s Brunch ($40) and dinner ($50), with live music from 9:30 a.m.1:30 p.m. and 6-9 p.m.

★

NEAR YEAR’S EVE ALL HITS SILENT DISCO

PARTY

6:30-8:30 p.m. The Louisville Underground, 640 Main St., Louisville. Tickets: $16-$112, eventbrite.com

Dance your pants off at The Underground with Big Little Sound Silent Disco — an event where you’ll be listening to the music on wireless headphones. This is an all ages family event.

DENVER

★ THE STRING CHEESE INCIDENT

7:30 p.m. Mission Ballroom, 4242 Wynkoop St., Denver. Tickets: $100-$130, axs.com

This Rocky Mountain-born band has been together for more than 25 years and has released 12 albums. The band were among some of the first performers to encourage ‘green’ shows and tours, and often raise support for local nonprofits. The band’s annual NYE concert has redefined the concert experience as “live music vibe innovators”.

★ RESOLUTION NEW YEAR’S EVE 2022

7:30 p.m. The Brighton, 3403 Brighton Blvd., Denver. Tickets: $99-$199, resolutiondenver.com

Resolution NYE has a new location this year — the Brighton event space in RiNo. The all-inclusive party has a dance party, lasers, confetti, inflatables, balloon drop and more. 40+ bartenders will keep you partying rather than waiting in lines.

★ SOUND TRIBE SECTOR 9

9 p.m. Fillmore Auditorium, 1510 N. Clarkson St., Denver. Tickets: $108-$240, ticketsqueeze.com

STS9 is an instrumental band influenced by rock, electronic music, funk, jazz, drum and bass, psychedelia and hip-hop. They mix up their post-rock dance music with electronics, gizmos and lights.

★ DENVER NEW YEAR’S EVE BLACK TIE PARTY 2022

8:30 p.m. Mile High Station, 2027 W. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $135, newyearsevenight.com

Bring in 2022 in style. Attendees will enjoy an open bar and live music from top-rated DJs and local cover bands. The second floor will feature Las Vegas-style casino games and prizes for the top chip holder. When the ball drops there will be a 2,000 balloon drop on the main floor.

★ UNION STATION ORIENT EXPRESS TO 2023

8 p.m. Denver Union Station, 1701 Wynkoop St., Denver. Tickets: $155$499, eventbrite.com

Ring in the new year with the world’s most iconic train inside the Great Hall at Denver Union Station. Every guest will enjoy an all-inclusive experience along with a midnight toast to celebrate the new year together. You can buy tickets for the Main Cabin ($155), the Bar Car ($205), the Dining Car ($299) or the overnight cabin experience at the Crawford Hotel ($499).

★ NEW YEAR’S EVE COCKTAIL PARTY 2022

8 p.m. Westin Westminster Hotel, 10600 Westminster Blvd., Westminster. Tickets: $110, nyenightdenver.com

This upscale party is just 15 minutes from downtown Denver and features an open bar, live bands, DJs, casino games, photo booths, champagne and a confetti blast. The newly renovated Westin Westminster’s Plaza Ballroom is one of the most impressive ballrooms in the city.

★ WHITE ROSE GALA

9 p.m. Ellie Caulkins Opera House, Speer Boulevard and Arapahoe Street. Tickets: $80, axs.com

This unique New Year’s Eve party will have everyone dressed up in their best Roaring 20s / Great Gatsby outfits at the Denver Performing Arts Complex. This year, Joe Smith & The Spicy Pickles will perform at the Gala — bringing swing, flapper dresses and fedoras to 2023.

WHITE ROSE GALA CREDIT TOBIAS SANDS PHOTOGRAPHY

★ BOOMBOX FEATURING

BLACKBEAT BRASS

8:30 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 East Colfax, Denver. Tickets: $40, axs.com

Head to the Ogden to hear a little blues, a little funk and a little rock with BoomBox. The group has become a streaming favorite on Spotify, with a few tracks reaching millions of plays.

★ DEVOTCHKA

8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $30, axs.com DeVotchKa is an American four-piece multi-instrumental vocal ensemble that borrow their name from the Russian word ‘devochka’, which means ‘girl’. Celebrate the new year with them at Bluebird Theater.

★ HAPPY CAMPER’S NEW YEARS EVE BASH

9 p.m. Happy Camper, 3211 North Pecos St., Denver. Tickets: $125, eventbrite.com

Get to the Highland neighborhood in Denver to meet friends and celebrate the New Year at Happy Camper. A ticket includes unlimited access to their open bar and buffet from 9 p.m. to 1 a.m. Drinks available in this package are draft beer, house champagne, wine and drinks with standard mixers.

★ DECADENCE

Dec. 30-31, 6:30 p.m.-2 a.m. Colorado Convention Center, 700 14th St., Denver. Two-day pass: $270; single-day pass: $170, axs.com America’s biggest electronic New Year’s celebration is the two-night event of the (end of the) year you won’t want to miss featuring music from CloZee, GriZ, Chris Lake and many more.

★ NEW YEAR’S EVE FIREWORKS

9 p.m. and midnight, 16th Street Mall, Denver Stand along the 16th Street Mall for the best views of Denver’s annual NYE Fireworks shimmering over downtown. The fireworks will be synced to a playlist from live DJs, who will be making beats on the Mall from 8 p.m. to midnight.

To have and to

hoard

The wild and unwieldy collections of local garage sale legend

Last week’s snow is stubbornly hanging around in patches along the gravel road leading to Joel Haertling’s five storage units off a major thoroughfare in East Boulder. Clustered among dozens of identical semi-trailers, each of his massive containers is packed to the brim with a maniacal menagerie of objects collected over his many decades as a fixture in the city’s garage sale scene.

“I believe there’s something you’ll want to see right when I open this one,” Haertling says as he begins to push on the vertical sliding door of a trailer near the far end of the property. The opening crack at the bottom reveals what looks to be the feet of an outward-facing person in blue jeans and cowboy boots, before spreading wider to reveal its full shape as a fake-out denim footstool. Dangling just behind this makeshift security system, among the seemingly endless mass of miscellaneous items and boxes, is the suspended rearend of a headless department store mannequin.

“You see that?” he asks in the polished wind-up of a joke he can’t wait to deliver. “It’s a flying buttress.”

The uniqueness of Haertling’s collection, spread out across nearly a

dozen storage spaces throughout the city, reflects the eccentricities of the singular collector himself. On this cold, early-December morning, the 64-year-old Boulder native is sporting oversized tortoise-shell sunglasses with a matching moss green vest-and-fedora combo as he moves with ease through the organized chaos of his beloved objects. He’s joined by a younger camera-wielding collaborator named Andrew Novick, who’s in the process of making a documentary about Haertling’s untamed pursuit of all this stuff

“When we come out here, we forge a path [through the stored items],” Novick says as Haertling continues to pore over the disparate objects filling one of his onsite trailers. “We’ll make some progress where we can get all the way to the back as we pull stuff out. But by the next time we come, he has put more stuff in.”

The pair has been scouring Haertling’s ever-growing collection for months in the lead-up to what is a first for the self-described hoarder: a gallery exhibition of his local garage sale finds throughout the decades — from bizarre tchotchkes to collections of calculators, cassette tapes, family portraits and points in between. Running through Feb. 5 at the Canyon Gallery inside the downtown Boulder Public Library, where Haertling worked as the gallery manager and cinema programer for more than 30 years, To Have and to Hoard: The Collections of Joel Haertling offers a glimpse into the wild and unwieldy gathering of objects that have become the life-guiding passion of this former public employee.

“I guess I wasn’t nurtured right when I was little,” Haertling says with a shrug when asked about his relentless drive for acquisition, closing the trailer door by yanking down on a makeshift rope. “What I’m trying to do is crawl back into the womb or something. … When I get into my apartment full of stuff, I feel good.”

It’s not always easy to tell when Haertling is joking, and that same sly impishness bleeds into the collections themselves. Precious music memorabilia from his high school days as

Joel Haertling get the gallery treatment at Boulder Public Library story and photos by Jezy J. Gray

bandmate to punk icon and former Dead Kennedys frontman Jello Biafra sits next to piles of cheesy vintage porno mags, rows of thrifted briefcases and islands of funky mid-century furniture in various states of disrepair. But whatever the item — silly or serious, priceless or paltry — each once gave Haertling a singular jolt upon picking it up and taking it home.

“A garage sale-aholic like me gets a rush buying something, and you get a rush again when you take it out of the car,” Hartling says. “Then I take pictures to document all the stuff, which I put in these huge binders I’ve been making since 2008, and then I put the stuff away. And that’s kind of a rush, too.”

‘An obsessive archive’

Many of Haertling’s meticulously cataloged binders currently line a shelf along the north wall of the Canyon Gallery at the Boulder Public Library downtown. But these massive tomes tell more than the stories of the objects within. They serve as diaristic glimpses into his collecting process and the people he meets along the way, complete with detailed hand-drawn maps, photos and memories.

“There’s a human element, but you don’t really see it in the stuff — it’s in the acquisition of the stuff,” says Novick, a co-curator of the exhibition and an avid collector in his own right. “He knows these people. He makes notes of all the interactions he’s had at the sales, and what he got and how much he paid. He’s archiving it in real time as he’s acquiring it. It’s an obsessive archive of his acquisition.”

This obsessive, human quality is part of what caught the attention of Jaime Kopke, senior manager of programs and events for Boulder Public Library. Since first meeting Haertling during his days as a colleague, before pandemic-related budget cuts led to the termination of his position, she says she’s wanted to find a way to channel his creative energy into a public exhibition for the community that made him.

“When you first see Joel, you know he’s a creative soul,” Kopke says. “It was really wonderful working with him while I did, because he has these amazing ideas for programs and events and he knows so much about Boulder. He knows so many people here, and I feel like he’s really part of the fabric of the community.”

To that end, visitors to the ongoing exhibition of Haertling’s collections will get a clear sense of the eccentric Boulder resident’s status as a gatherer of ephemera in this place we call home. From the curated objects to the exhaustive catalogs telling their stories, To Have and to Hoard gives locals the opportunity to see themselves too. But for Kopke, the real power of the exhibition comes down to a couple very simple but powerful elements.

“I feel like the most successful exhibitions we’ve shown are ones where it’s really apparent that somebody’s passion is involved in the work

— the deeply personal shows,” she says. “When you walk in [to the Haertling exhibition], two things happen with visitors, and I saw that even as we were setting up: People smile — it brings them joy — and people are curious. Those two things are kind of the magic ingredients of the show.”

Bringing joy to others is clearly hardwired into Haertling’s compulsive collecting. He’s an

enthusiastic gifter, known for surprising friends, colleagues and acquaintances with an out-of-the-blue item tailored to their specific interests. But back at his storage site in East Boulder, Haertling says when he’s scouring local sales for the next thing to bring home, he’s searching for something deeper than a goofy object that might put a smile on someone’s face.

“I’m looking for what I forgot I wanted so much,” he says, remembering a French horn he bought years ago at the Super Duper Garage Sale at the Boulder County Fairgrounds in Longmont. The unexpected instrument, which he haggled down to $50 from $75, woke dormant memories of his childhood days as a budding musician. “A whole lot of people have dreams and then lose their dreams — they even forget what their dreams are. But you see an object like that and you’re back in the dream flow. It’s that reminder of a different world.”

ON VIEW: To Have and to Hoard: The Collections of Joel Haertling. 9 a.m.-7 p.m. (weekdays), 10 a.m.-5 p.m. (Friday-Saturday), noon-5 p.m. (Sunday) through Feb. 5, Canyon Gallery, Boulder Main Public Library, 1001 Arapahoe Ave.

■ Ugly Sweater Bar Tour

4-6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16,

participating downtown Boulder businesses

Hopefully you have at least one horrendous holiday sweater — you’ll need it for this party. Drink specials abound at select businesses in the downtown Boulder area during this holiday bash, including Avanti F&B, Gemini, R Gallery + Wine Bar and more.

■ Flashlight Candy Cane Hunt

6:30-8:30 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16, Bob L. Burger Recreation Center, 111 Baseline Road, Lafayette. Free

A holiday trickster has hidden candy canes in the field behind the Bob L. Burger Recreation Center. While the kids are searching, they might find an elf or two left behind — make sure to bring them to the check-in table to receive a prize. There’s hot chocolate and cookies inside the recreation center, where Santa will be on hand for pictures.

■ Outworld Brewing Winter Holiday Jazz and Funk Series

6 p.m. Friday, Dec. 16, Saturday, Dec. 17, Thursday Dec. 22 and Friday, Dec. 23, Outworld Brewing, 1725 Vista View Drive, Ste B., Longmont. Tickets: $12, outworldbrewing.com

Outworld Brewing presents a two week-long eclectic music experience at their Longmont brewpub. This week features three performances — blues from The Jack Hadley Band on Dec. 16, dancefunk from Elekrohornz on Dec. 17, sweet saxophone melodies from Rico Jones on Dec. 22 and Stafford Hunter on the trombone on Dec. 23.

■ Skate with Santa

3-5 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Sport Stable Superior, 1 Superior Drive. Free, registration required

Santa might be skilled at flying high with his sleigh, but did you know he can skate? See the big man’s skills for yourself at Superior’s Skate with Santa event. Once you’ve had your fill on the ice, there is a craft area for little ones with hot cocoa and cookies.

■ Ring in the Holidays

3 and 7 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Saint Paul Lutheran Church, 1600 Grant St., Denver. Tickets: $30, rmringers.org

The Rocky Mountain Ringers are bringing their holiday performance to Saint Paul Lutheran Church. Along with some oldies-but-goodies, the squad will perform new pieces alongside special guest Safonia. If you can’t make it in-person, check out their live stream.

■ Warmth of the Holidays

4-5:30 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17, Broomfield Auditorium, 3 Community Park Road. Tickets: $10, rockymountainbrassworks.org

Rocky Mountain Brassworks invites you to their holiday concert to enjoy the bright sounds of brass music in the Broomfield Auditorium. Catch them while you can — their next performance is in March.

ON THE BILL: On the heels of their debut EP Special Shade of Blue, Longmont bluegrass outfit Sugar Moon brings their soulful

★ FRIDAY, DEC. 16

Wookiefoot with A-Mac & The Height. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $22-$25, z2ent.com

Dawn Clement with Gonzalo Tepa and Clare Church. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: adults $20, students $10. Museperformancespace.com

Nick Dunbar and Sad Cowboy. 8:30 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Tickets: $15 cash

Wicca Phase Springs Eternal. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $20, bluebirdtheater.net

John Craigie. 8 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $25, axs.com

★ SATURDAY, DEC. 17

Little Feat. 8 p.m. Boulder Theater, 2032 14th St. Tickets: $49-$99

Alaska Thunderfuck. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $20-$249, z2ent.com

Joe Anderies Quartet. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: $20, museperformancespace.com

The Railbenders. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $28, bluebirdtheater.net

Brondo. 9 p.m. Ogden Theatre, 935 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $10-$25, axs.com

Saves the Day with Spitalfield. 8 p.m. Summit Denver, 1902 Blake St. Tickets: $32, livenation.com

★ SUNDAY, DEC. 18

Goose: A Benefit For Conscious Alliance. 8 p.m. Fox Theatre, 1135 13th St., Boulder. Tickets: $85, z2ent.com

A Jazzy Hanukkah. 7 p.m. Muse Performance Space, 200 E. South Boulder Road, Lafayette. Tickets: $20

Sugar Moon. 8:30 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Free

The Rock and Roll Playhouse Plays Music of the Beatles for Kids. 11:30 a.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $18.50-$20, bluebirdtheater.net

★ TUESDAY, DEC. 20

Geoff Tate’s Big Rock Show. 8 p.m. Bluebird Theater, 3317 E. Colfax Ave., Denver. Tickets: $29.50, bluebirdtheater.net

★ WEDNESDAY, DEC. 21

Bonnie and Taylor Sims. 8:30 p.m. Gold Hill Inn, 401 Main St., Boulder. Tickets: $25 cash cover

PUBLIC NOTICE

NOTICE TO CREDITORS

Estate of David Todd Burnett, Deceased Case No.: 2022PR657

All persons having claims against the above- named estate are required to present them to the Personal Representative or to the District Court of Boulder County, Colorado on or before April 16, 2023, or said claims may be forever barred.

SALLIE S. BURNETT, Personal Representative 760 Bridger Point Lafayette. Colorado 80026

COURTESY

■ Centennial State Ballet: ‘The Nutcracker’

2 p.m. Saturday, Dec. 17 and 1 p.m. Sunday Dec. 18, Niwot High School, 8989 Niwot Road. Tickets: $17-$28, centennialstateballet.secure.force.com

Sweeten up your holiday season with the Centennial State Ballet’s performance of The Nutcracker. The traditional musical will enchant your night and transport you to the land of sweets. In-person and live stream tickets are available.

■ Figure Drawing ‘Marathon’

1 p.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, The Spark, 4847 Pearl St. Suite B4, Boulder.

Tickets: $45, artofmodeling.org

Visual artists can work on their speed and accuracy by drawing four different nude models, two at a time, as they work through a few poses. The first two hours will be full of short poses for two to 20 minutes, and the second two-hour block will include one 40-minute pose and one hour-long pose. Ages 18 and up, or with parental consent.

■ Winter Solstice Celebration

10 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 18, Wild Bear Nature Center, 20 Lakeview Drive, Nederland. Free

Tired of the sun ducking behind the mountains earlier and earlier each evening? The Wild Bear Nature Center will help you get in the winter spirit and celebrate the gradual return of light with live music, owls, crafts and more.

KEITH BOBO PHOTOGRAPHY

ART OF MODELING

■ Sushi Kuro presents Sip and Sushi

6:30-8 p.m. Monday, Dec. 19, Freedom Street Social, 15177 Candelas Parkway, Arvada. Tickets: $33-$66, eventbrite.com

Want to try your hand at rolling sushi? Join Chef Taylor West as he teaches how to roll three different styles: hand rolls, Futomaki and Uramaki. If you love sushi, this is the perfect opportunity to learn how to make some on your own.

■ Ben Markhart: Ski Touring Thompson Pass in Alaska’s Chugach Mountains

7 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, Neptune Mountaineering, 633 S. Broadway, Boulder. Registration required.

The Chugach Mountains have some of the most accessible big mountain skiing in North America — what’s challenging is learning how to capitalize on its location. Join IFMGA guide Ben Markhart and learn more about the Chugach during his presentation at Neptune Mountaineering.

■ Nature Adventure Days: Winter Wildlife Adaptations

8 a.m. Thursday, Dec. 22, Wild Bear Nature Center, 20 Lakeview Drive, Nederland. Tickets: $75-$85, wildbear.org

Wild Bear Nature Center is offering a full day of outdoor studies at Mud Lake and other areas around Nederland. Catered for ages 5-12, this event will teach participants about animals in the winter and how they survive. Space is limited to 12 participants, pre-registration is required.

HELP WANTED

ENGINEERING/ TECHNOLOGY

NVIDIA Corp in Boulder, CO has an opening at various levels. Please ref code & title and send resume to: NVIDIA, 2701 San Tomas Expressway, Santa Clara, CA 95050, Attn: KC HR or send to NVIDIA-RecruitAd@nvidia. com. These positions will engage in and support the design, development, and/or marketing of NVIDIA’S GPU (graphics processing units), computer graphics, AI and supercomputing for gaming, professional visualization, data centers, and various industries (automotive, transportation, healthcare and manufacturing).

Sr. Verification Eng (VERE112) Architect verification environments using advanced verification concepts such as UVM.

Wet and wild

The long-gestating (and technically impressive) sequel ‘Avatar: The Way of Water’ is a theme park in search of a movie by Michael J. Casey

Everything was going so well for Jake Sully (Sam Worthington). He became a full-fledged Na’vi, the leader of the Omatikaya clan, married Neytiri (Zoe Saldaña), fathered two boys (Jamie Flatters and Britain Dalton), a daughter (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss) and adopted Kiri (Sigourney Weaver), the teenage daughter of Dr. Grace Augustine (also Weaver) conceived via immaculate conception. Ah, the salad days of Pandora. But then “the Sky People” return, and all hell breaks loose.

ON SCREEN:

Avatar: The Way of Water opens in theaters everywhere on Dec. 16.

Before we continue: How is this vocabulary tracking with you? Pandora, Neytiri, Na’vi, Omatikaya — familiar, right? It seems that when we talk about entertainment franchises in 2022, we talk about characters as if they are friends; plot points as if they are news. It’s hard to go a day without seeing someone around town wearing a T-shirt with a Star Wars or Marvel character, but Avatar? Not so much.

It’s curious that the 2009 CGI extravaganza became the then-highest-grossing movie of all time, completely reshaping how studios approached popular entertainment, but still struggles to track with U.S. audiences. Down in Walt Disney World, there’s a whole section in one of the parks themed to Avatar. Guests wander among the floating rocks and bioluminescent world of Pandora and ride an ikran in Flights of Passage, a flight simulator in front of a massive 3D screen that gives you an immersive experience unlike anything else. It’s a trip. But, unlike other Disney parks, there aren’t characters in costume to meet; little to see that relates to Avatar’s particular plot points. It’s like walking around one big movie set without the script. That might speak to one of the key criticisms of filmmaker James Cameron’s initial installment: technically innovative, narratively conventional.

So, does a 13-year gestation period between Avatar and The Way of Water, the first of four planned sequels, correct that imbalance? Not really. For reasons I probably shouldn’t get into, Sully and his family have to leave their forest surroundings and seek refuge in the watery village of the Metkayina, led by Ronal (Kate Winslet) and Tonowari (Cliff Curtis). The Metkayina are to the seas as the Omatikaya are to the skies, so the Sullys must learn to swim, ride flying fish and bond with tulkuns — massive, armored whale-like creatures that are the Metkayina’s spiritual cousins.

It’s all pretty impressive. The 3D technology is crisp and clear, the underwater sequences — there are many — have a breathtaking grandeur and the CGI character designs have personality and identity. Yet, it still feels more theme park than movie.

As to Kiri, the Na’vi born to no father: The Way of Water tosses that nugget out in the first few minutes but never cashes in on it. Her character builds in mystery, but those moments are sprinkled throughout the movie like seeds for future installments. That’s franchise 101 stuff, sure, but it also feels like Cameron and company don’t know where the ship is headed.

Yes, there’s a ship in The Way of Water, a big one, and it plays a significant part in the movie’s final third. That’s when the film goes from a ho-hum revenge tale to a climax lifted from another extremely lucrative Cameron movie. They’ve stretched the story so thin you can see right through it.

Stem Ciders branches out

The Lafayette-based cidery recently opened a fourth location in Denver’s RiNo neighborhood

by Colin Wrenn

When Stem Ciders founders Eric Foster and Phil Kao first opened their urban cidery in RiNo in 2013, they didn’t know that within a decade the company would have a product on exclusive tap at Disney World. But in the beginning, they didn’t have Matt Ochs or Patrick Combs.

Both Ochs and Combs came aboard in 2021, Ochs as a line cook and Combs on the beverage side. Ochs took over as executive chef in May 2022, with Combs claiming the original title “Director of Liquid.” Each one has independently transformed their sector, together redefining the company as it grows across towns and concepts. With the early December grand opening of its new RiNo taproom (340 Blake St.), Stem now encompasses four independent locations, each one serving a long list of ciders and its own original food menu.

While the most dramatic changes at Stem took place over the last two years, things really began to shift in 2018 when the cidery relocated all of its production to Acreage (1380 Horizon Ave., Lafayette), a massive facility and Basque-inspired dining room in Lafayette. Distribution grew rapidly, and the increased production capacity allowed Stem to craft enough cider to send to 38 states.

“It’s been a big year for Stem,” says public relations consultant Tristan Chan with a grin. This spring, after acquiring Howdy Beer — The Post’s famous Western Pilsner — Stem did a complete re-branding of its cans and continued the winning streak by opening Howdy Bar in October and the RiNo taproom the following month. All this after debuting its more-than-impressive Ghost Box Pizza in downtown Lafayette last December.

“Since the beginning, the focus has been on all real ingredients,” says Chan, noting that nothing in the cider comes from concentrate and batches are flavored with fresh fruit purées and botanicals. Under Combs’ direction, the cider list has mushroomed both in size and inventiveness. The core ciders — real dry, off-dry, chile guava, salted cucumber, raspberry, pear and hibiscus — all remain largely unchanged, with Combs regularly adding unexpected and experimental batches to the roster.

“I get to paint whatever flavors I want onto that blank canvas,” he says, referring to the dry cider base that underpins each product. Current special releases include a pumpkin spice latte made with Novo Del Fuego espresso, a lavender produced in collaboration with Denver Botanic Gardens, and a peppermint mocha just in time for the holidays. The cocoa caramel — the flavor specially requested by Disney — is also available for tasting at both Acreage and at the RiNo taproom.

When Acreage opened in 2018, the food menu was the result of a collaboration between consulting chef Daniel Asher — the arch-locavore behind River and Woods and Ash’Kara — and in-house chef Eric Lee. Since taking over in late May 2022, Ochs has dialed in the intention, helping to augment and execute a succinct list of top-notch farm-to-table dining — though he believes his greatest contribution so far has been a re-framing of culture. With a hands-on approach to the line, he’s built a staff of eager young cooks. “I really love to teach this profession, especially to the younger generation. The only way to teach it is to actually cook,” he says. “Happy cooks, happy food, happy customers.”

Ochs’ sophisticated approach to leadership has been built over a lifetime spent in the kitchen. In 2023, he will have spent 35 years in the profession, though his love for the craft began earlier. “My grandmother in Hoxie, Kansas, was the dietician for the grade school and high school,” he says, remembering his early years absorbing a fundamental understanding while watching her cook. Ochs washed dishes and worked the fry station at Hoxie’s local seafood joint throughout high school before joining the Navy. “The whole time I was in the Navy I was cooking either on-base or on-ship,” he says. After years spent in either enlisted mess or galley, he was promoted to cooking for admiral staff on his last voyage. “I went to cooking for 30 people rather than 5,000 a day,” he says.

After getting a degree in hotel and restaurant management from Montana State University, Ochs moved to Phoenix to attend the Scottsdale Culinary Institute. His externship at Michael’s at the Citadel — then one of the Phoenix area’s real houses of fine dining — turned into a job where he oversaw the company’s catering department, which at its peak would serve up to 300,000 guests a day at the Phoenix Open. While in Arizona, he also returned to the Scottsdale Culinary Institute to spend a year as an instructor of fine dining. Since then he’s helmed a range of kitchens including ones at The Greenbriar Inn, Culture Meat and Cheese, and The Post. His menu at Acreage leans closest to fine dining, with the taproom seeing a list of genre-bending bar standards. Ghost Box serves Detroit-style and wood-fired pizza inspired by both classic pies and dishes ranging from Chicago beef and carbonara. “It’s as much of a scratch kitchen as a pizza place could be,” Ochs says.

While Ochs has been crafting exemplary menus and building teams, Combs has been meticulously developing individual flavors and wholly original lines. “I held it in my heart for a long time that what I wanted to do was create,” says Combs, noting that he’s on “a relentless pursuit of how I can create the perfect beverage for myself and others.”

Originally from Flagstaff, Arizona, Combs has been in the beverage industry for nearly a decade. In 2016, he began working at Avery Beer Co. as a sensory scientist. “The whole idea with making a brand of beer is to make it taste the same way every time,” he says. In his role, he would train staff to sense for consistency along with using data to inform flavor decisions. He’s since spent a couple of years as the production manager at Cerebral Brewing and acted as the quality manager for another of the state’s real heavy hitters, WeldWerks Brewery. Combs draws inspiration from across genres. He says his recent line of Stem Imperials — with flavors like Rum Runner and Singapore Sling — was largely inspired by his visits to Pearl Street’s tiki paradise, Jungle.

With both Ochs and Combs independently propelling Stem, the company has every intention of continuing along its meteoric course. “I want to keep opening restaurants,” Ochs says. “I just want to continue to grow together with these guys.”

Kanpai!

Ring in the New Year with a taste of modern Japan in the heart of Boulder!

Whether the sun is shining or snow is falling, our little corner of Pearl Street is the perfect place to celebrate the season. 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!

Among the things that drew Chad Staehly to Colorado in the early ’90s was good beer. Then a student at Colorado State University in Fort Collins, Staehly appreciated the flavorful craft suds of New Belgium and Odell, as well as other area brewers. Staehly also had a passion for roots rock, which eventually led him to team up with Leftover Salmon frontman Vince Herman in the Boulder-launched jam band Great American Taxi.

Fast forward a few decades and Staehly, now a family man, finds himself co-owner of a craft spirits distillery, La Crosse Distilling Company, in his home state of Wisconsin.

The whole endeavor emerged from the ashes of a music venue concept Staehly was developing with his business partner, Nick Weber.

“Nick had also started to conceptualize a distillery [in La Crosse], which is a booming college location. La Crosse reminds me of the Fort Collins I lived in during the first part of the ’90s, or maybe Boulder back in the ’80s,” Staehly says.“We were getting ready to draw up plans for a music venue, which had been a lifelong dream of mine, and were at the point where we were going to have to start spending money, when I decided to put the music idea on hold and go with the distillery. I just thought it was a home run. I’ve been involved with music most

of my life, and I knew that there was a lot more money in liquor.”

Staehly, who lived in Colorado for 25 years, continues to play music with The High Hawks, Todd Snider and Great American Taxi. He also manages artists including Snider, The Band of Heathens, Chicago Farmer and Reed Foehl, in addition to working with the indie record label LoHi Records.

Sitting on the banks of the Mississippi River in a cozy renovated industrial building that includes a few steampunk-looking copper and metal stills, and powered by geo-thermal energy, La Crosse Distilling offers an inviting space as well as a variety of pleasing craft hooch, including gin, vodka, bourbon and specialty whiskey, such as their Downtown Toodeloo, a “rock and rye” blend that recalls a bygone American era.

“We started making our Field Notes vodka and gin first,” explains Staehly. “Then we moved to whiskey, but whiskeys and bourbons lay around for years in barrels before they’re ready, so there’s more

upfront cost there.

A lot of craft distillers start with clear spirits because you can have a batch of gin or vodka done in about 10 days, versus four years to get a bourbon ready. Our Downtown Toodeloo is a type of rye whiskey that’s a ‘rock and rye,’ which is a flavored rye whiskey. It harkens back to the end of the 19th century and early 20th century, when doctors and pharmacists would prescribe whiskey for just about everything that was ailing you. But not everyone has the constitution to pound down a shot or two of whiskey for their medicine, so they’d add rock candy to the rye whiskey to sweeten it up.”

Staehly says the popularity of rock and rye whiskey led to some distilleries producing it as a spirit type.

“It was also a way for early distillers in the U.S. to compete in a different way with imported whiskeys from places such as Scotland and Ireland,” he says. “It kind of disappeared for most of the 20th century. We were intrigued by it, and we saw some opportunity with us being Deadheads, with the whole ‘have a cup of rock and rye’ reference from the song ‘Mississippi Half Step Uptown Toodeloo.’ We thought that was a lot of fun and we

played into it with the branding and the artwork. Our distillery is in downtown [La Crosse] on the banks of the Mississippi, so we called it Downtown Toodeloo. It goes down really easily, but it’s 88 proof whiskey so it packs a punch.”

In addition to relying on green energy for their facility, Staehly and company source their grains (including corn, rye and malted barley) from organic farms in their area.

“We like to use local family farms that are really doing it right and taking care of the land, which is really important to us,” he says. “Then we send all our spent grains back to the farms, where they get used for livestock feed, composting and fertilizer.

Located in the north country, La Crosse Distilling makes use of the region’s plentiful white oak trees, which make for excellent staves that are used when building the barrels in which the whiskey is aged.

“There’s a famous stave maker near us who harvests white oak sustainably,” Staehly says. “The cold, hard winters up here result in tight rings on the trees. Those tight rings make great wood for bourbon barrels.”

La Crosse Distilling is set to release its first bourbon, in those local white oak barrels, in March 2023.

“For a long time people thought you could only make whiskey in the moderate climates of Tennessee and Kentucky. But what has been found is that we can get extra layers of flavor profile in whiskeys and bourbon because of that wood.”

La Crosse spirits are distributed in Colorado and are available at stores including Hazel’s Beverage World. Check their website for local availability.

by Dan Savage

Dear Dan: I’m feeling a little lost about something. I’m a 42-year-old gay man and I’ve been married for nine years. My marriage has been very rocky, and I should’ve had the courage to end it much sooner. I have now made the decision to do so and will be filing right after the holidays. We took a break last year and separated, and during that time I briefly met an incredible guy. More recently, I’ve come to know him better and I think he is really special. I’m not divorcing because of him, but sometimes it takes meeting a special person to realize what you’re lacking in your own relationship. I’ve talked with him about the situation, and we will remain friends whatever happens, but he doesn’t want to be a “rebound.” I don’t want to be that either. I’ve only come to know him better in the last couple of weeks, and I’m scared of asking him if he’d be open to dating me when the divorce is final. I’m afraid that if I do that, I

ROMAN ROBINSON

will scare him off and I don’t want to lose him as a friend.

—Dreaded Rebound Relationship

Dear DRR: Here’s the funny thing about rebound relationships… when they work out, no one remembers they were rebound relationships. They’re just relationships. But when two people get together shortly after one or both got out of a prior relationship and it doesn’t work out, everyone stands around saying, “Oh, yeah, those rebound relationships, they never work out.”

I say this as someone who has been in a rebound relationship for almost three decades. I met my husband the first night I went out after getting my heart broken. I almost didn’t give the guy who would eventually become my husband a chance, DRR, because I’d heard — again and again and again — that rebound relationships never work out.

“If it weren’t for rebound relationships, I wouldn’t have been with the incredible man I’ve been with for 19 years and counting,” said my friend Dr. Daniel Summers. “When we first met, I was still mired in sadness after having been unceremoniously dumped shortly before. Not only did I still have feelings for the other guy, but the man also who would eventually become my husband watched me cry over him. And then, it clicked. The guy who was right in front of me was the one I had been looking for all along. Nobody would ever call him my ‘rebound husband.’ They simply know him as the guy I was lucky enough to meet at the right time.”

Maybe rebound relationships would have a better reputation if people like me and Dr. Summers occasionally referred to the men we married as “rebound husbands,” if only to remind people that, yes, rebound relationships sometimes work out. And since very few of us wind up married to the first person we dated seriously, most of us are in rebound relationships that somehow worked out.

All that said, DRR, it’s Mr. Incredible who has qualms, not you. He’s the one

who’s worried about getting into a potential “rebound relationship” with someone who just got divorced. Maybe he believes what everyone assumes to be true, i.e., rebound relationships never work out, and getting into one that does work out might be the only way to convince him otherwise. Getting into one that doesn’t work out, on the other hand, could wind up confirming his priors. It’s also possible he isn’t interested in dating you — bound or rebound — and his stated wariness about being your “rebound” is a white lie meant to spare your feelings. But there’s only one way to find out how he really feels: initiate that divorce, follow through, get it finalized, and then ask Mr. Incredible — assuming he’s still single — how much more time has to pass for your relationship to be out of “rebound” territory.

Follow Dr. Daniel Summers on Twitter @WFKARS.

Questions to mailbox@savage.love Podcasts, columns and more at Savage.Love!

by Rob Brezsny

ARIES

MARCH 21-APRIL 19: Aries author Eric G. Wilson has written a book that I might typically recommend to 40% of the Aries tribe. But in 2023, I will raise that to 80% of you. The title is How to Be Weird: An Off-Kilter Guide to Living a One-of-a-Kind Life . According to my analysis of the astrological omens, it will make sense for you to stop making sense on a semi-regular basis. Cheerfully rebelling against the status quo should be one of your most rewarding hobbies. The best way to educate and entertain yourself will be to ask yourself, “What is the most original and imaginative thing I can do right now?

TAURUS

APRIL 20-MAY 20: One of your potential superpowers is cultivating links between the spiritual and physical worlds. If you develop this talent, you illuminate the ways that eternity permeates the everyday routine. You weave together the sacred and the mundane so they synergize each other. You understand how practical matters may be infused with archetypal energies and epic themes. I hope you will be doing a lot of this playful work in 2023, Taurus. Many of us non-Bulls would love you to teach us more about these mysteries.

GEMINI

MAY 21-JUNE 20: Here are fun and useful projects for you to cultivate in 2023: 1. Initiate interesting trends. Don’t follow mediocre trends. 2. Exert buoyant leadership in the groups you are part of. 3. Practice the art of enhancing your concentration by relaxing. 4. Every Sunday at noon, renew your vow to not deceive or lie to yourself during the coming week. 5. Make it your goal to be a fabulous communicator, not just an average one. 6. Cultivate your ability to discern what people are hiding or pretending about.

CANCER

JUNE 21-JULY 22: In 2023, I hope you will refine and deepen your relationship with your gut instinct. I will be ecstatic if you learn more about the differences between your lucid intuition and the worry mongering that your pesky demons rustle up. If you attend to these matters — and life will conspire to help you if you do — your rhythm will become dramatically more secure and stable. Your guidance system will serve you better than it ever has. A caveat: Seeking perfection in honing these skills is not necessary. Just do the best you can.

LEO

JULY 23-AUG. 22: Psychiatrist and author Irvin Yalom wrote, “The question of meaning in life is, as the Buddha thought, not edifying. One must immerse oneself into the river of life and let the question drift away.” But Holocaust survivor and philosopher Viktor Frankl had a radically different view. He said that a sense of meaning is the single most important thing. That’s what sustains and nourishes us through the years: the feeling that our life has a meaning and that any particular experience has a meaning. I share Frankl’s perspective, and I advise you to adopt his approach throughout 2023. You will have unprecedented opportunities to see and know the overarching plan of your destiny, which has been only partially visible to you in the past. You will be regularly blessed with insights about your purpose here on earth.

VIRGO

AUG. 23-SEPT. 22: As a young woman, Virgo-born Ingeborg Rapoport (1912–2017) studied medicine at the University of Hamburg in Germany. But in 1938, the Nazis refused to let her defend her PhD thesis and get her medical degree because of her Jewish ancestry. Seventy-seven years later, she was finally given a chance to finish what she had started. Success! The dean of the school said, “She was absolutely brilliant. Her specific knowledge about the latest developments in medicine was unbelievable.” I expect comparable developments for

you in 2023, Virgo. You will receive defining opportunities or invitations that have not been possible before. Postponed breakthroughs and resolutions will become achievable.

LIBRA

SEPT. 23-OCT. 22: Of the 2,200+ humans quoted in a 21st-century edition of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations , 164 are women — a mere 7%! At least that’s more than the four females represented in 1855’s first edition. Let’s take this atrocious injustice as our provocation for your horoscope. In accordance with astrological omens, one of your assignments in 2023 will be to make personal efforts to equalize power among the genders. Your well-being will thrive as you work to create a misogyny-free future. Here are possible actions: If you’re a woman or nonbinary person, be extra bold and brave as you say what you genuinely think and feel and mean. If you’re a man, foster your skills at listening to women and nonbinary people. Give them abundant space and welcome to speak their truths. It will be in your ultimate interest to do so!

SCORPIO

OCT. 23-NOV. 21: To prepare you for 2023, I’m offering you wisdom from mythologist Michael Meade. Of all the signs in the zodiac, you Scorpios will be most likely to extract riches from it. Meade writes: “Becoming a genuine individual requires learning the oppositions within oneself. Those who fail or refuse to face the oppositions within have no choice but to find enemies to project upon. ‘Enemy’ simply means ‘not-friend’; unless a person deals with the not-friend within, they require enemies around them.”

SAGITTARIUS

NOV. 22-DEC. 21: “I will always be as difficult as necessary to achieve the best,” declared Sagittarian opera singer Maria Callas (1923–1977). Many critics say she was indeed one of the 20th century’s best. The consensus is that she was also a temperamental prima donna. Impresario Rudolf Bing said she was a trial to work with “because she was so much more intelligent. Other artists, you could get around. But Callas you could not get around. She knew exactly what she wanted and

why she wanted it.” In accordance with astrological omens, Sagittarius, I authorize you, in your quest for success in 2023, to be as “difficult” as Callas was, in the sense of knowing exactly what you want. But please—so as to not undermine your success — don’t lapse into diva-like behavior.

CAPRICORN

DEC. 22-JAN. 19: To inspire your self-inquiry in 2023, I have chosen a passage from Herman Hesse’s fairy tale, “A Dream Sequence.” It will provide guidance as you dive further into the precious mysteries in your inner depths. Hesse addressed his “good ardent darkness, the warm cradle of the soul, and lost homeland.” He asked them to open up for him. He wanted them to be fully available to his conscious mind. Hesse said this to his soul: “Just feel your way, soul, just wander about, burrow into the full bath of innocent twilight drives!”

AQUARIUS

JAN. 20-FEB. 18: Cardiovascular surgeon Michael DeBakey lived till age 99. He almost died at 97, but was able to capitalize on an invention that he himself had created years before: a polymer resin that could repair or replace aging blood vessels. Surgeons used his technology to return him to health. I am predicting that in 2023, you, too, will derive a number of benefits from your actions in the past. Things you made, projects you nurtured, and ideas you initiated will prove valuable to you as you encounter future challenges and opportunities.

PISCES

FEB. 19-MARCH 20: I decided to divine the state of your financial karma. To begin, I swirled a $10 bill through the flame rising from a green candle. Then I sought cosmic auguries in the burn patterns on the bill. The oracle provided bad news and good news. The bad news is that you live on a planet where one-fifth of the population possesses much more than fourfifths of the wealth. The good news is that in 2023, you will be in decent shape to move closer to the elite one-fifth. The oracle also suggests that your ability to get richer quicker will increase in direct proportion to your integrity and generosity.

The Griner double standard

In mid-November, just months into Brittney Griner’s nine-year sentence for criminal drug charges in Russia, the WNBA star was transferred to a penal colony to serve the remainder of her time.

The facility, known as IK-2, is a remnant from the gulag area infamous for its harsh conditions. According to the Russian newsaper Moskovsky Komsomolets, IK-2 employs torture, beatings and slave-labor conditions. There, Griner worked from 7 a.m. until midnight or later, unable to use the bathroom, without privacy or personal belongings, and without contact to the outside world.

All because she brought some cannabis vape cartridges into a country of prohibition.

Last week, however, Griner got good news. In exchange for an infamous arms dealer known as Viktor Bout (aka the “Merchant of Death”), she was to be released from IK-2. She was coming home. And both her family and most of the country celebrated with her.

The story has been all over the news. CNN interviewed the hostage affairs official who flew Griner home. CBS reported that, for the first time since her detention in Russia, she hit the court and played basketball at the military base where she was undergoing medical evaluations. The Washington Post reported she was “in good spirits.” Joe Biden was, predictably, criticized by the right for making a dangerous “mistake,” and commended on the left for making such “painful” negotiation decisions.

But what was largely missing from all the coverage surrounding Griner’s triumphant release, was any discussion of why she was incarcerated in Russia in the first place. Few wanted to face the fact that people are locked up right here, in this country, for the same offense. According to a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) report, there are 22,000 people incarcerated for cannabis offenses at the state level, and 10,000 more at the federal level, adding up to a grand total of 32,000 cannabis prisoners currently behind bars in the U.S.

Many of those prisoners are being held for the same offense that Griner was locked up in Russia for: cannabis smuggling. Some are locked up for even pettier offenses like cannabis possession. Those Americans have families grieving over their loved ones’ incarcerations just as seriously as Griner’s own friends and family grieved for hers.

In July, Boulder Weekly reported on this story (Weed Between the Lines, “From Russia, with hash,” July 21, 2022), interviewing Justin Strekal, founder of the cannabis policy advocacy group Better Organization for Winning Legalization (BOWL) PAC. Strekal pointed out that Griner’s situation was handing the Biden administration the golden chance to legalize cannabis.

“In every sense of the word, this is an opportunity for the Biden administration,” Strekal said. “It is very hard to see how [Biden] can build a credible geopolitical pressure campaign against Russia when we would similarly

incarcerate Brittney Griner for a very minor offense.”

That was before the midterms, before Biden made big promises to pardon all federal cannabis possession charges, and big demands to reconsider the scheduling of the drug (Weed Between the Lines, “Tastes like crow,” Oct. 13, 2022). Promises and demands that, two months later, have yet to come to fruition.

Still, Griner’s homecoming sent ripples across Capitol Hill. Some are calling for reform at home. Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Oregon) said he hoped this could be a moment of progress toward “more rational cannabis policy.”

Conservative politicians expressed frustration that the administration put so much effort toward getting Griner released, when another American, Mark Fogel, is similarly being detained in Russia for cannabis possession. And a third American, an ex-marine named Paul Whelan, is serving a 16-year sentence in Russia over alleged espionage.

“It is clear Paul Whelan and Marc Fogel are afterthoughts to this administration, who care more about celebrity admiration and wokeness than returning all Americans safely to their families,” tweeted Rep. Guy Reschenthaler (R-Pennsylvania).

Reps. Reschenthaler, Mike Kelly (R-Pennsylvania) and Glenn Thompson (R-Pennsylvania) filed a resolution in November 2022 seeking to put more pressure on the Biden administration to free Fogel.

But all of this talk of returning Americans to their families, and efforts made toward freeing prisoners jailed abroad for cannabis offenses, seems a little sanctimonious coming from the U.S. It appears there’s a double standard here: It’s unfair for other countries to arrest and imprison Americans for cannabis offenses because only America is allowed to do that to its own people.

Americans are celebrating the release and return of Brittney Griner — while thousands remain in US prisons for the same crime by Will Brendza