Metro Silicon Valley

D E C E M B E R 2 3-29, 2 01 5 | V O L . 3 2 , N O . 41 | S I L I C O N VA L L E Y, C A | F R E E

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metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

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Limit Rights Reserved. Not Responsible for Typographical Errors. No Sales to Dealers or Resellers. Rebates Subject to Manufacturer’s Specifications. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Sales tax to be calculated and paid on the in-store price for all rebate products.Actual memory capacity stated above may be less. Total accessible memory capacity may vary depending on operating environment and/or method of calculating units of memory (i.e., megabytes or gigabytes). Portions of hard drives may be reserved for the recovery partition or used by pre-loaded software.

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*Instant activation discount requires activation through Fry’s Electronics on new lines of service with new 2-year agreement on qualifying plan per line. Limit 5 phones per customer. Limited time offer.

No Dealers. Subject to terms and conditions of carrier’s agreement, including, if applicable, activation/upgrade fees, credit approval and early termination fees. The Qualified upgrade discount requires a new 2-year agreement for qualified existing customers. See contract and carrier’s rate plan brochures for additional details. California customers to be charged sales tax based on price without activation, including items designated as “free” after instant savings. While Supplies last, limited time offers. DROID is a trademark of Lucasfilms Ltd. and its related companies. Used under license. Beats Audio and the b logo are trademarks of Beats Electronics, LLC. Google, the Google logo, Android and Google+ are trademarks of Google, Inc. 4G LTE is available in more than 410 markets in the U.S.; see vzw.com.

LTE is a trademark of ETSI.Coverage not available everywhere. See brochures and Terms and Conditions (including arbitration provision) at www.T-Mobile.com for additional information. T-Mobile and the magenta color are registered trademarks of Deutsche Telekom AG. ©2013 T-Mobile USA, Inc.**4G speeds delivered by LTE or HSPA+ with enhanced backhaul. Available in limited areas. Availability increasing with ongoing backhaul deployment. Requires 4G device and compatible data plan. Learn more at att.com/network.

Home of Fast, Friendly, Knowledgeable Service SHOP ONLINE at www.FRYS.com “Advertised prices valid only in metropolitan circulation area of newspaper in which this advertisement appears. Prices and selection shown in this advertisement may not be available online at Fry’s website: www.FRYS.com”

facebook.com/fryselectronics

CAMPBELL 600 E. Hamilton Ave. (408) 364-3700 • FAX (408) 364-3718 CONCORD 1695 Willow Pass Road (925) 852-0300 • FAX (925) 852-0318 FREMONT 43800 Osgood Road (510) 252-5300 • FAX (510) 252-5318 PALO ALTO 340 Portage Ave. (650) 496-6000 • FAX (650) 496-6018 SAN JOSE 550 E. Brokaw Road (408) 487-1000 • FAX (408) 487-1018 SUNNYVALE 1077 E. Arques Ave. (408) 617-1300 • FAX (408) 617-1318

STORE HOURS Wed 8-10, Christmas Eve 7-5 Closed Christmas Day, Sat 8-9, Sun 8-9 M-W 10-8 Prices Good Wednesday, December 23, 2015 through Saturday, December 26, 2015.

Prices subject to change after Saturday, December 26, 2015.

Limit Rights Reserved. Not Responsible for Typographical Errors. No Sales to Dealers or Resellers. Rebates Subject to Manufacturer’s Specifications. Designated trademarks and brands are the property of their respective owners. Sales tax to be calculated and paid on the in-store price for all rebate products.Actual memory capacity stated above may be less. Total accessible memory capacity may vary depending on operating environment and/or method of calculating units of memory (i.e., megabytes or gigabytes). Portions of hard drives may be reserved for the recovery partition or used by pre-loaded software.

Fry’s Electronics, American Express® Cards, MasterCard, Visa Card, and Discover Network Card, Accepted at All Fry’s Locations “We Will Match Any Competitive Price*.” Before making a purchase from a Fry’s Electronics store, if you see a lower current price at a local authorized competitor in-stock, or from an authorized Internet competitor ready to ship, Fry’s will be happy to match the competition’s delivered price*.

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

3.1AMP Dual USB Home Charging Adapter

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

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News Editor: Josh Koehn Music & Arts Editor: Nick Veronin Associate Editor: Paul Hersh Staff Writer: Jennifer Wadsworth Contributing Writers: Rita Cameron, Christiana

Cobb, Jeffrey Edalatpour, John Flynn, Karla Kane, Stephen Layton, Tad Malone, Ngoc Ngo, Sheryl Nonnenberg, Gary Singh, Richard von Busack,

ART/PRODUCTION Design Director: Kara Brown Graphic Designer: Tabi Dolan Production Operations Manager: Sean George Graphic Artists: Lorin Baeta, Rene Barba,

Kathy Manlapaz, Mariana Sanchez Photographers: Greg Ramar, Geoffrey Smith II

DISPLAY SALES Advertising Director: John Haugh Senior Account Executive: Bill Stubbee Account Executives: Reina Alvarez,

Gordon Carbone, Billy Garcia, Michael Hagaman, Stacy Humphrey, Sherman Lee Sales & Marketing Assistant: Natalie Kirkland

CLASSIFIED SALES Senior Account Executive: Michael R. Hill Classified Sales: Dave Miller

ACCOUNTING/OPERATIONS/ ADMINISTRATION Accounting Specialist: Aurene Pokorny Information Systems: Chris Giancaterino Operations/Circulation: Lazaro Cardenas Office Manager: Dave Miller

DISTRIBUTION Metro is available free of charge, limited to one copy per reader. Additional copies of the current issue may be purchased for $1 each, payable at the Metro office in advance. Metro may be distributed only by Metro’s authorized distributors. No one may, without permission of Metro, take more than one copy of each issue. Subscriptions: $50/six months, $95/one year.

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Declared a legal newspaper of general circulation by the Superior Court of Santa Clara County Decree No. 651274, April 7, 1988. ISSN 0882-4290. Entire contents © 2015 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved. Reproduction in any form prohibited without publisher’s written permission. Unsolicited material should be accompanied by a stamped, self-addressed envelope; however, Metro is not responsible for the return of such submissions.

11 5

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

THIS MODERN WORLD

By TOM TOMORROW

I SAW YOU

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

6

ISawYou@metronews.com Send us your anonymous rants and raves about your co-workers or any badly behaving citizen to I SAW YOU, Metro, 380 S. First St., San Jose, 95113, or via email.

Holy Hell

comments@metronews.com RE: “ORANGE IS THE NEW SAUCE,” COVER, DEC. 16

I am addicted to La Vic's!!! And oh that sauce!!!!

TERESA ZANELLA VIA FACEBOOK RE: “CRANE GAME,” NEWS, DEC. 16

Wait … so all I have to do is give large donations to Mike Honda and he’ll sing happy birthday to me on the FLOOR OF CONGRESS? wow.

I don’t even have the words for how insane that is.

DAPHNE TAYLOR VIA SAN JOSE INSIDE

RE: “ORANGE IS THE NEW SAUCE,” COVER, DEC. 16

RE: “ORANGE IS THE NEW SAUCE,” COVER, DEC. 16

Orange Sauce <3

La Vics definitely isn’t bad … but it isn’t even close to being one of the better Taquerias.

Being overpriced doesn’t help

LEE ANN ERCEG VIA FACEBOOK RE: “ORANGE IS THE NEW SAUCE,” COVER, DEC. 16

GABRIEL SEBASTIAN GARCIA VIA FACEBOOK

I follow the food!! lol

RE: “CRANE GAME,” NEWS, DEC. 16

DAN DELAY VIA FACEBOOK

Congrats to Ro Khanna? @LEVINSONJESSICA VIA TWITTER

You go above and beyond— literally on a soapbox with a loud amplifier. I like how you start with the Bible and then extemporize on your own.

For instance, I learned from you that if someone smokes, they’re going to burn in Hell.

Doesn’t Jesus teach us that in Emphysema 1:17? In addition, if two girls are walking arm in arm, you have to scream at them: “ARE YOU LESBIANS???”

I’m pretty sure that Jesus addresses lesbianism in his Epistle to Women in Sensible Shoes, doesn’t he? You had two helpers to form a sort of offensive line, so anyone trying to pass through is likely to get accosted with righteous screaming, holy spittle and idiotic handbills. Yeah, I called the cops. The coffee shop called the cops. The security guards called the cops. You calmed down quite a bit when the boys in blue showed up. Interestingly, countless smokers, suspected lesbians and a host of other sinners got by scot-free when they were around. I have a feeling you’ll accomplish more in a week with a good psychiatrist than umpty-ump years yelling at us, the public. It’s not about Jesus. It’s not about salvation.

It’s about your need to act out.

Give our ears a rest and get some professional help.

RE: “CRANE GAME,” NEWS, DEC. 16

Solid reporting by @Josh_Koehn on @RepMikeHonda “secret” list of top campaign donors -- and how he rewarded them @RAMONAGIWARGIS VIA TWITTER

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

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metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

THE FLY

49er Confidential A recent trip to review records at City Hall started out as an exercise in futility.

All we found to inspect were a bunch design-build invoices for Levi’s Stadium, which is set to host Super Bowl 50 on Feb. 7. Looking for more answers, Fly crashed a governance committee meeting held in a small conference room. Many key political players were present, including councilmembers TERESA O’NEILL and PAT KOLSTAD, as well as Mayor JAMIE MATTHEWS, who seemed a bit startled by an unexpected reporter’s entrance into the room. The meeting touched on topics such as how Public Records Act (PRA) requests are handled They and how items should Did make it onto council What? agendas, which led to a few observations on SEND TIPS TO FLY@ how the Mission City METRONEWS. sausage gets tubed.

COM Interaction between transparency-challenged city officials and lobbyists has drawn attention of late, and Fly couldn’t help but note the opaque manner in which city officials interact with the 49ers’ representatives at the weekly meetings, especially when all notes at these meetings are apparently taken by City Attorney REN NOSKY, rendering them protectable communications under the claim of attorney-client privilege. City Manager JULIO FUENTES bristled at the suggestion that the city and club should be anything but BFFs, and he groused something about the media’s duty to make more specific PRA requests if they want better information. Thankfully, there was no need to play defense as Nosky informed Fuentes that Fly has been playing nice so far. Any grumpiness on Fuentes’ part could be attributed to the council’s recent decision to give senior administrators pay bumps based on performance, and Fuentes got a smaller boost. He was apparently so offended he rejected the offer and could be on his way out.

Greg Ramar

8

SVNEWS

Geek on Fleek NEVER BORED Ted Alspach, president of Bezier Games, has released several wildly popular ‘euro games.’

Niche board games surge in popularity as valley techies go wireless

BY STEPHEN LAYTON

W

HEN DETERMINING if a neighbor is a werewolf, it helps to have one’s wits.

Unfortunately, as the local lush of my village, I was wasted when the angry mob came to the door. They demanded I prove my humanity, but I failed to give a coherent answer. Just to be safe, they lynched me.

This is a typical round of One Night Ultimate Werewolf, a popular board game that found its way to the coat closet of a close friend and avowed nerd.

Tracing the origins of the game, however, doesn’t require a plane ticket to Hasbro’s

headquarters in Pawtucket, R.I. In the midst of an engineering revolution, in the heart of the most technically advanced region in the world, a new kind of board game has skyrocketed to a prominence not seen in decades—and many of the games are being produced in the heart of Silicon Valley.

Unlike traditional American board games, these new kind of games, dubbed “euro games,” focus less on direct competition between players and more on territory and resource management.

The games often intertwine the fates of players, so that cooperation becomes necessary to win, give or take a welltimed stab in the back.

Euro games, like Settlers of Catan, seem to be especially popular among Silicon Valley programmers. But many more people are catching on. The Toy Industry of America reports that the

games/puzzles category—not including electronics—was up 10 percent from 2013 to 2014, totaling $1.42 billion in revenue. Catan, the prototypical euro game released in Germany in 1995, has sold 30 million copies worldwide. By comparison, Monopoly has sold over 275 million copies—but with a 60-year head start.

A trip to the HQ of Bezier Games, creator and publisher of One Night Ultimate Werewolf and several other popular—though niche—board games, leads to a row of two-story beige houses.

The home base is hidden in plain sight in a suburb of south San Jose. Perhaps the only distinctive feature is a truck in the driveway, which is fully wrapped in an orange and purple sunset, silhouetting a muscular wolf man.

Ted Alspach, a former Adobe product manager who’s now president of Bezier Games, sits inside the home at a huge circular table in his game room. Even he can’t seem to believe the explosive popularity of his board games over the last decade.

“If you had told 2005 Ted that he had games in the top 50 on

of a man proposing in the middle of a One Night game.

Bezier’s parallel-lined logo can be found on games like Suburbia or Castles of Mad King Ludwig. Not exactly household names, but they rate in the top 100 games on boardgamegeek.com, the preeminent online hub for board gamers. They rank close to many other Bay Area-bred games: Dominion, out of Berkeley; Ticket to Ride, out of Los Altos; or Race for the Galaxy, from Palo Alto.

The Bay Area’s robust board game ecosystem appears to owe its provenance to former tech geeks.

Tom Lehmann, designer of Race for the Galaxy, worked at Oracle as a programmer. “After four hectic years, I wanted to work on smaller projects and had a bit of money to be foolish,” he says, “so I became a game publisher.”

Lehmann’s colleagues have followed similar trajectories, he says, naming off Bay Area designers such as Matt Leacock, Donald Vaccarino, Susan McKinley Ross, Wei-Hwa Huang and Alspach.

“Among the designers in the Bay Area, many, including myself, have worked in high tech and bring those skills to our designs,” says Lehmann, who collaborated with Huang, a one-time Googler, on a dice-based adaptation of Race for the Galaxy.

Leacock, a former Apple employee, created the acclaimed Pandemic.

Alspach says he knows a game design has real promise when players take ownership of the play. In Castles of Mad King Ludwig, as an example, the game’s king demands that players create a castle to his peculiar specifications, set randomly at the beginning of each game. The players then physically build their own castle, which includes constructing bowling alleys or great halls or dungeons. Players try to curry favor with the king while minimizing penalties, such as putting the bowling alley next to the queen’s bedroom.

During playtesting, Alspach found, players started out just wanting to build their castle for its own sake.

“They’re so excited about getting this room that they add to their castle,” he says. “The points are not even in their mind.”

Creating that kind of engagement, to the point where winning becomes secondary, Alspach says, is why these niche games have become so special.

“You want to win, but outsmarting other people, there’s something about that, like, ‘Oh, I got that one past you!’”

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9 DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

BoardGameGeek,” Alspach says, “he would’ve said, ‘No way. That’s awesome!

But no way.’”

Alspach recalls how he ended up designing and publishing board games for a living. In 2005, he bought a plane ticket to Spiel, the world’s largest board game trade show, in Essen, Germany. There, out of a friend’s booth, he sold all 50 copies of a crude expansion he had designed for a then-popular game. Alspach didn’t break even for the trip, but he returned home confident and bought a high-end Xerox printer to continue constructing games of his own design.

“As a neophyte, totally naïve game designer, you send out 10 copies of your game to all these publishers and you expect, since it’s a good game, that someone’s gonna publish it,” he says.

2005 Ted was frequently disappointed.

It wasn’t until 2007 that Alspach gained traction, after making his own version of a bluffing game familiar to summer campers. Known to many as Mafia, he called his version Werewolf.

Players sit in a circle and must identify the lone werewolf, who secretly “murders” other players one by one. A consensus about whom to stop is formed through freeform argument, meaning the best werewolf is usually the best BSer. Alspach began creating his own version of the game, adding new roles for players and gameplay mechanisms.

“It was really popular,” he says. “People kept asking me to make them a copy.”

He posted his creation several places online, including BoardGameGeek, and ended up selling 800 copies, all handmade. “That’s 40,000 cards I had to cut,” Alspach says. “At some point I realized the quality was just acceptable— and that’s probably putting it nicely. So, I decided to take the dive and actually get it professionally printed.”

He found an artist in New Zealand and a printer willing to do small-scale manufacturing. The first run totaled 2,000 copies and within a year the game was sold out. “That doesn’t sound like a lot,” he says, “but in the world of board games selling 2,000 or 3,000 copies is a successful game.”

The next version, a modification of another game by a Japanese designer, became One Night Ultimate Werewolf.

Since its release in 2014, it has sold almost 100,000 copies. Kickstarter campaigns for its sequel and prequel have raised $150,000 and $380,000, respectively. Alspach recently posted a video on the company’s Facebook page

10

WEB: SanJoseInside.com TWITTER: @sanjoseinside FACEBOOK: SanJoseInside

Dan Pulcrano

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

An inside look at San Jose politics

GREENLIT The number of pot clubs in San Jose has fallen from more than 100 last year to 16 as of last week.

Sweet 16: San Jose Finalizes Approved Pot Clubs

BY JENNIFER WADSWORTH It’s official: Sixteen cannabis clubs have passed legal muster to operate in San Jose. The city posted the list of collectives online just after the 5pm deadline Dec. 18, a year-anda-half after enacting its medical marijuana ordinance.

The final 16 include some of the biggest players in the local industry— Buddy’s, Harborside, Elemental Wellness and Purple Lotus. The cost of complying with the city forced many others out of business. Before passing the ordinance, which bans pot clubs from all but 1 percent of the city, San Jose was home to more than 100 collectives.

One of the biggest challenges for collectives has been complying with the city’s vertical integration model, which requires total control—everything from seed to sale.

Just weeks before the deadline, the city dialed down some of those

rules, allowing pot clubs to buy and sell from one another. In March, the city will consider whether to reverse a requirement that limits cultivation to only Santa Clara County or adjacent counties.

While the list of 16 is final, a lot of work remains for both the city and collectives. For one thing, San Jose will have to figure out how to mesh its local rules with the state’s new marijuana regulations.

“We are still working through a variety of legal processes to close those that might still be operating illegally,” city spokesman Dave Vossbrink told San Jose Inside. “We will be implementing recent amendments to the city’s ordinances, and we will be working with the Legislature to reconcile recent legislation and city ordinances.”

Meanwhile, some collectives will continue to press the city to relax its stance on vertical integration in favor

of a hybrid model. Under the city’s rules, a pot club has to manufacture all of its own product. But certain medicines, such as suppositories and transdermal patches, have to be made in a laboratory, in a highly regulated cleanroom setting. For many collectives, it would be cost-prohibitive to incorporate commercial kitchens and medical labs when they could simply buy the product from a third-party vendor.

The threat of a ballot measure may force the city to make more compromises. Come June, residents will likely vote on the Sensible San Jose initiative, which would replace the city’s pot ordinance.

Under the ballot measure authored

by Oakland-based attorney James Anthony, dispensaries would still register with the city, pay taxes and follow a set of operational requirements.

Vertical integration would be optional and zoning less exclusionary.

Fremont Man Indicted on Terrorism Charge A Fremont web developer who allegedly tried to join a terrorist group in Syria has been indicted by a federal grand jury, prosecutors announced last week.

Adam Shafi stands accused of providing material support to the al-Nusra Front, a Sunni cell linked to al-Qaeda.

The 22-yearold pleaded not guilty to the terrorism charge in a San Francisco Adam Shafi federal court, where he returns next week for a bail hearing. If convicted, he could receive 20 years behind bars.

Federal agents arrested Shafi on July 3, days after he tried to board a nonstop flight from SFO to Istanbul. Turkey is a common point of entry to Syria for foreigners looking to join terrorist groups such as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), according to an affidavit authored by San Jose-based FBI agent Christopher Monika.

Court records indicate that Shafi made a number of phone calls to friends leading up to his attempted departure to express his willingness to die for the al-Nusra Front.

“I just hope Allah doesn’t take my soul until I have at least, like, a couple gallons of blood that I’ve spilled for him,” he allegedly told a friend in a wiretapped phone call weeks before his arrest.

Shafi’s attorney said his client is innocent. “There is no evidence that he was planning to do anything but fly to Istanbul,” criminal defense attorney Joshua Dratel said, “which is where he had been the year before for two days where he attempted to help refugees and returned home.”

—Jennifer Wadsworth

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‘Citizen’ X RANKLING A reading of Claudia Rankine’s 2014 novel ‘Citizen’ lovingly disrupted a Donald Trump rally.

Author-poet Claudia Rankine offers a journey in racial deconstruction

BY GARY SINGH

C

LAUDIA RANKINE, the award-winning poet and author of the recent book, Citizen, recently appeared at San Jose State to a capacity crowd in the Martin Luther King, Jr. Library.

The Center for Literary Arts at San Jose State already schedules a rip-roaring slew of author events throughout the academic year, with Pulitzer Prize winners and Nobel laureates occasionally making the rounds.

But this time, the room was especially jam-packed.

Originally published in 2014, Citizen recently went viral because it was the book Johari Osayi Idusuyi silently read during a Donald Trump rally, just a few seats behind him, visible to all those who watched.

In the video, an older couple begins to accost her for not paying attention, but she clearly doesn’t care and decides to do her own thing, dismissing the couple’s aggression.

Everyone thought it was a planned protest, but it wasn’t. Idusuyi later said she entered the event with an open mind but that she lost interest once Trump’s henchmen began bullying a black protester. Predictably,

her act set off insidious explosions of hatred, but it was a masterpiece of performance art.

Citizen is a landmark work in the way it shatters all preconceived boundaries between poetry, prose, lyrical essay and serene invectives against all manifestations of racism in American society. You can just picture the publisher’s marketing department squirming in their seats over which “genre” the book belongs in or how to even categorize it. Thankfully, Citizen defies vapid marketing nonsense. Much of the book is material one would normally refer to as prose poetry, but juxtaposed with essay-like ruminations, imagery, social commentary, and scripts for situation videos. The whole package feels like a documentary film, but in book format.

And when it comes to the content, much of Citizen’s potency lies in the jarringly serene fashion in which Rankine presents numerous stories,

reports and second-person texts illuminating how racism emerges from nowhere in casual interactions, intentional or not. It’s a powerful experience, one that forces the reader to remagine what it means to be human, and invisible, or, even worse, just how often survivors of continuous race-based prejudice are conditioned to “let it go” or “move on.”

For example, between secondperson prose poems, we get powerful commentary on the hideous racism experienced by Serena Williams at the hands of bigoted umpires and journalists. In other sections, Rankine surveys the ripple effects of Don Imus’ comments and the racist insults suffered

by Algerian-French soccer legend Zinedine Zidane. All of this flies in readers’ faces, but with an elegant poetic calm that makes the subject matter even more horrifying, oddly enough.

There’s an almost cosmic sense of displacement, in the way survivors of lifelong racism feel forced to explain, or pretend, that each new incident is separate from the linear passage of time, of previous repeated incidents. The entirety of what is you and the space you invisibly occupy in the unfolding universe becomes a self-bruising process, all while everyone else in the world pretends none of this is even happening, or that they couldn’t possibly be among those contributing to the problem.

What’s more, the book’s design plays a role in all of this. Most of it is bone-white and glossy. The black text practically symbolizes the objectified otherness of the non-white experience.

The stories and people seem to scream for visibility among the whiteness of everything else surrounding them.

Rankine appeared at San Jose State a few weeks ago and read many passages from Citizen. Her voice was soothing. Serene. Clear. Images from the book were projected on the screen to her left. It was like a Powerpoint presentation reiterated as a documentary, reinvented as a poetic reading of essays, or a combination of these. Just like in the book, she presented a series of events, almost incantation-like and lyrical. And unlike many poetry readings, everyone in the crowd seemed attached to every single word.

She “had the room,” as poets and musicians like to say.

When it was over, I felt grateful, as did everyone else in the standing-room only room. We were no longer invisible.

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A guide to yet another overindulgent New Year’s Eve in Silicon Valley

BY JOHN FLYNN, ANDREW LENTZ & METRO STAFF

SWANKY CASUAL

L

ET’S BE REAL: New Years Eve is totally overrated. Everyone feels obligated to go out, to be with other people, to have someone to kiss when the clock strikes midnight, and to spend an inordinate amount of cash.

For what? Some balloons, a dash of confetti and a flute of Cooks? Psh… When will we as a species evolve and move beyond all of these trifling, NYE traditions?

Not this year. There’s just too much going on, and the #FOMO is palpable.

So read this guide carefully. Whether free, cheap or pricey, swanky or casual there is a party out there that will satisfy.

Or don’t read—that’s what the emojis are for. Less thinking, more drinking. Happy New Year!

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Children’s Discovery Museum, San Jose | 10am, $13

CHEAP

Teach the kids about time zones while also allowing them to celebrate the coming of the new year at a reasonable hour. The Children’s Discovery Museum will ring in multiple midnights with several ball drops and confetti showers—at noon, 1pm and 2pm. The new exhibit, “Adventures in Light: A Holiday Workshop,” will also be on display. Free for infants.

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The Fairmont, San Jose | All Day, Free

CB Hannegan’s, Los Gatos | ’Til 2am, Free

New Year’s Eve marks the final day of The Fairmont’s Winter Wonderland, which event organizers describe as a “holiday version of Willy Wonka’s Chocolate Factory,” featuring 6-foot-tall nutcrackers and a massive gingerbread house display.

This traditional Irish pub is perfect for those who want a low-key New Year’s.

The traditional champagne toast at midnight is a favorite of regulars. Order up a pint of stout, a Black & Tan, or whatever your tipple, and usher in 2016 with a boisterous group singalong of “Auld Lang Syne.” (AL)

‘FROZEN’ IN THE PARK 565 E. Campbell Ave • Campbell RageSalonCampbell.com 408.866.Hair (4247)

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Plaza De Cesar Chavez, San Jose | 7pm, Free

The annual Christmas in the Park fantasyland is a great place to usher in 2016 with the whole family. There are concession stands, rides and holidaythemed activities—and, on Dec. 31, a special performance featuring characters from the Disney film Frozen. Plus, there’s the option to stay for a NYE countdown with long-running San Jose band, SAGE.

NOON YEAR’S EVE Cheeky Monkey Toys, Menlo Park | 10am-1pm, Free

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With crafts, other fun activities and a noon-countdown to an epic balloon drop, this is a solid Mid-Peninsula destination for the little rager in your family.

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Not everyone can stay up until midnight, and for young parents, it’s inadvisable.

So for those with a tot in tow who still want to cut loose on the last day of 2015, there’s the second annual Noon Year’s Eve. Formal attire is mandatory as DJ Kevin and MC Cheryl host an all-ages countdown to midday. (JF)

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The Hill's no nonsense layout and straight shooting bartenders are sure to keep it real in Morgan Hill this New Year’s Eve. Talk about a solid pre-house party destination for a quick pop or even a perfect place to find yourself after a tasty dinner in downtown Morgan Hill. (CF)

Tequila Shots Bar and Grill, Milpitas | ’Til 2am, Free

This casual sports bar is turning things up a notch for New Year’s Eve. Bartenders will be slinging house specialties, like the strawberry shortcake and watermelon Jolly Rancher shooters, and on-hand Mexican food is no-frills but tasty. Shoot some pool and knock back a shot or seven of premium tequilas, like Clase Azul and Corralejo. The ever-present manager, Silver Dragon, has as much fun as his loyal customers. (AL)

JÄGER-RAGER Paul & Eddie’s Monta Vista Inn, Cupertino | ’Til 2am, Free

Voted California’s number No. 1 Jägermeister bar two years in a row, this local haunt is always ready to party.

There will be funny hats, noisemakers and complimentary champagne at midnight. That’s on top of the usual— pool table and darts, a nonstop jukebox and a festive crowd. (AL)

DRINKING, DANCING, G, DJS & DINNER Loft Bar & Bistro, San Jose | ’Til 2am, Free

Local favorite The Loft will provide a special dinner menu to celebrate the evening in style. Later, the dance floor will open up with a pair of the downtown club’s resident DJs. Finally, ring in 2016 with a balloon drop, and champagne toast.

NEW YEAR’S PARTY Lilly Mac’s, Sunnyvale | ’Til 2am, Free

Celebrate the new year with the luck of the Irish. Lilly Mac's is hosting an Irishthemed New Year's Eve party with no cover and plenty of drink specials.

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St. John’s Bar & Grill NEW YEAR’S DOWNTOWN The Britannia Arms, San Jose | ’Til 2am, Free

The Brit in downtown San Jose is ringing in the new year with plenty of booze and two bars—inside and on its heated back patio. DJ Ready Rock is set to spin the ones and twos.

FORMAL MASQUERADE Branham Lounge, San Jose | ’Til 2am, Free

Put on your finest duds and bring a mask—the Branham Lounge is stepping things up this year—with no casual attire allowed, a midnight champagne toast, drink specials and DJ DVS Dave on the decks. You stay classy, San Jose.

PROST! Das Brew, Fremont | ’Til 10pm, Free

When Jan Schultz was just a tot, growing up in Germany, his sage grandfather taught him the secrets of brewing terrific beer. Now, Jan’s brewery offers the ultimate in New Year’s pregaming with a sampling tour of his tasting room where he has 12 beers, four of which are seasonal. (JF)

510 Lawrence Expwy, #110, Sunnyvale 408.738.8515 | www.stjohnsgrill.com

PIED PIPER’S PUB The Rose and Crown, Palo Alto | ’Til 2am, Free

This English-style pub serves a wide spread of beers, specializing in local Palo Alto products or imports from Belgium, like Duvel, the hallowed and mighty pale ale that has its own specialized bulbous glass for consumption. The rustic joint’s claim to fame is a cameo appearance in the HBO comedy, Silicon Valley. (JF)

THE PARIS OF PALY

NYE gala Celebrate in the new year in style

NOLA, Palo Alto | 5:30pm, Free

This Palo Alto watering hole patterns itself after the Big Easy. Spread over three levels and featuring seven funky dining rooms, this slice of the Deep South has ample beer on tap and a long list of wines to choose from. Should you get peckish, chow down on their alligator and crawfish dumplings. (JF)

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The perfect spot for locals who stick around during the holidays, Katie Bloom’s is known to be packed on New Year’s Eve. The juke will have sentimental favorites going on all night, as the bartender queues up the

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

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NYE 17

New Years Eve Dance Party Patron Latin Rhythms Tickets presale $49 includes New Years Eve Toast and Party Favors 3 Course BBQ Meal Tables are set for 4 to 8 people Standing room only tickets $25 (food not included)

GET ON THE FLOOR There are plenty of dance parties to choose from in the Valley.

Tickets Available: Smoking Pig BBQ Fremont Smoking Pig BBQ San Jose Patron Latin Rhythms

champagne glasses for the countdown to 2016. Sop up that Guinness with an order of fish & chips or shepherd’s pie. (AL)

Doors Open At 7:00 pm DJ Dance Party 7:00pm

BREAK FREE

Patron Latin Rhythms

The Escape, San Jose | 9pm, Free

9:00pm

With a complimentary champagne toast, party favors and dancing, The Escape is keeping it simple on New Year’s Eve.

DJ Dance Party 10:15pm Patron Latin Rhythms

HEAVY, HEAVY NEW YEAR

11:00pm - 1:00am

Caravan, San Jose | 10pm, Free

kqchildcenter.com 15063 Union Ave, SJ 408.377.6660

0-5 years Active learning to promote cognitive, social/emotional, physical development Science-based and academic curriculum Oversized playground with beautiful play structure and gardening area Pre-Kindergarteners over and beyond prepared for Kindergarten

Heavy metal music is the most brutal way celebrate the death of 2015. Check out locals Disvein, Deathgrave and Dead Pressure at Caravan Lounge and ring in the New Year with a pint of champagne— the Champagne of Beers, that is.

BALLIN’ ON A BUDGET PHANTOM OF THE NEW YEAR

Pure Lounge, Sunnyvale | Doors: 9pm, $20-30

With a midnight countdown, balloon drop and confetti blast, plus a champagne toast, Sunnyvale’s ultra-luxe club aims to ring in 2016 in high style. Get your

swagger on in the main room with an opening set by Pure regular DJ eHash, followed by DJ Sequence dropping Top 40, hip-hop, and EDM grooves; over in the Red Room it’s straight hip-hop from Chris F. Doors open 9pm; 21 and over. No guest list for this event. (AL)

MUSIC FEST 2 Taste Nightclub, Santa Clara | Doors: 8pm, $25

This swank Santa Clara spot is ringing in the new year with three rooms of bootyshaking beats. In the House Room with DJs Rated R, Zeewala and Audio 1. In the Hip-Hop and Soul Room, Squintz and Nasty Dick will be spinning trill and chill tunes. And then there’s the Open Format Room, with Jay Reese and Remedy.

Buffet dinner from 8pm to 9:30pm.

Ballers can order VIP bottle service starting around $300. (AL)

DIRTY DANCING The Brass Rail, Sunnyvale | ’Til 2am, Free before 6pm, $10-$15 after

Up to 10 lovely ladies will be dancing NYE at the Rail—one of the oldest bikini bars in the nation. Balloons, horns, hats, confetti—and, um, other things. For an extra $20, guys can go up on stage for one last lap dance in 2015. If that’s not your thing, there are also pool tables throughout the club and eight HDTVs. (AL) 20

11 19

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

20 metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

NYE 18

BUDDY SYSTEM Keep your date and friends close on New Year’s Eve.

THE ROYAL BALL Charley’s LG, Los Gatos | Doors: 7pm, $22

Awarded best place to dance in the Silicon Valley, Charley's LG is an ideal spot to cut a rug on New Year's Eve. DJ Aaron The Era will be spinning at this upscale, high-energy event. Doors open at 7pm, and all patrons are strongly encouraged to arrive before 9pm to avoid the line. VIP bottle service starts at around $180 per bottle.

A JAZZY NEW YEAR

HAPPY HOUR REDUCED PRICES

On Selected Tapas, Sangria, Beer, Cocktails And Wine • Mon-Fri • 3:30-6:30pm FRIDAY 12/25

Happy Holidays!

SATURDAYS • 9pm-Midnight

James Robinson Group 400 Castro Street • 650.940.9500 cascalrestaurant.com

Cafe Stritch, San Jose | Doors: 9pm, $20

Cafe Stritch hosts live Jazz music just about every night, and they're keeping the tradition going into 2016 with a live performance by the Marcus Shelby Quartet to ring in the new year.

THE GATSBY EXPERIENCE Opal, Mountain View | ’Til 2am, $25

Mountain View’s newest Castro Street hotspot, Opal, is only a year old, but they certainly know how to party. The club is celebrating the New Year with The Gatsby Experience. DJ FM and DJ Benofficial will be spinning Top 40, house, hip-hop and more. Get down beneath classy chandeliers, a 10-foot by 10-foot LED video wall, video screens throughout

the venue, multiple bars and a bumping sound system. Bottle service packages start at $500.

COUNTDOWN TO NEW YEAR’S EVE Studio 8, San Jose | $35-$45

One of the largest, most spacious clubs in San Jose, Studio 8 occupies the former lobby of the Bank of Italy building. It’s massive columns and super high ceiling, lend an air of class to the venue. Top DJs, party favors, a 2016 countdown and champagne toast are all on the menu.

Bottle service packages start at $500.

ODYSSEY EDM DANCE PARTY Palladium Arena, Sunnyvale | $22

Featuring local and national DJs, spinning up big house beats and glitchy IDM, this is the place to be for those who think 1015 Folsom is a bit too far of a drive. With four areas for dancing, DJs include John Beaver, Ross FM, Switchblade, Iridium, Filthgrinder, DJ Bates, Arcade, Demi Child and more.

BLACK & RED BALL The Ritz, San Jose | 8pm, $10

Get trashed to the tunes of DJ Basura for a single Alexander

22

11 21 DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

NYE 20

22 metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

Hamilton. Basura rocks the Ritz most weeks with his blend of new wave, alternative and punk, and is more than capable of giving you something to move to before the complimentary champagne toast at midnight. (JF)

THE FORCE AWAKENS AFK Gaming Lounge, San Jose | 8pm, $10

In celebration of the reawakening of the Force, San Jose’s gamer bar and pub will be hosting a Star Wars-centric celebration. Cosplay as your favorite canon character and dance to live DJs, fueled by the inhibitor-loosening power of Bantha Milk. At midnight, they will be launching a raid on the Empire to destroy the Death Star. (JF)

SWANKY SOIREES

BIG FAT YEAR-END KISS-OFF COMEDY SHOW Theatre on San Pedro Square, San Jose | ’Til 2am, $38-$60

For the 23rd consecutive year, Will Durst and his merry band of pranksters are proud to take their end-of-the-year comedy extravaganza to the Bay Area's far-flung nooks and crannies, bringing their hilarious New Year's celebration to the people. At Theatre on San Pedro Square.

NEW YEAR’S EVE

YEEHAW,, DOC! The Saddle Rack, Fremont | 7pm, $35

Dust off your red vest, activate your hoverboard and automatically lace up your Nikes, the Bay Area’s largest country nightclub will be hosting a Back to the Future-themed party to ring in the New Year. The evening will be scored by the twangy jams of Jewels Hanson and Diablo Road. (JF)

CIRQUE Q MAGICAL Aura Kitchen + Bar, San Jose | 9pm, $23

BREAKFAST · KIDS’ MEALS JUICE BAR · LOOSE LEAF TEAS

BUY ONE GET ONE LIMITED TIME OFFER Buy 1 meal and get a 2nd meal on us. Yep, for FREE.*

Aiming to close out 2015 with a succession of mind-bending performances.

This singular event will feature shows by an illusionist, Brazilian acrobats and fire dancers. Amid these displays of quirky talents, there will be complimentary champagne to drink while a cannon continuously launches confetti in anticipation of a midnight ball drop. (JF)

THE CHINA CATS Club Fox, Redwood City | 9pm, $25-$35

Known for putting their own jamtastical spin on the music of The Grateful Dead, The China Cats will be improvising into the new year with special guest Pat Nevins.

FUNKY FRESH Fresh New Campbell location!

Quarter Note, Sunnyvale | 8pm, $20

2125 S. Winchester Blvd · Campbell 408.724.9835 · scramblz.com

Ring in the new year with live R&B and funk jams from the Wil Roc Project, a champagne toast at midnight, a buffet, raffle and drink specials all night.

*Must present coupon at time of order. Receive meal of equal or lesser value free. Limit one per table. M-F only. Exp 12/31/15.

Hyatt Regency, Santa Clara | ’Til 2am, $77-$87

The Hyatt Regency Hotel in Santa Clara is hosting an elegant New Year's Eve party.

The price of admission gets you two drink tickets, a big balloon drop, champagne toast, two huge ballrooms—with a live band band in one and a DJ in the other—plus a casino featuring big prizes.

BLACK & WHITE AFFAIR SP2, San Jose | ’Til 2am, $40-$100

The third annual Black & White Affair at San Jose’s SP2 is just what it sounds like—a high-class event. But make no mistake, it is also sure to be a party.

Enjoy great drinks and dancing to Top 40, hip-hop and club classics at the beautiful venue, with three bars—two inside and one outside on the heated, partially sheltered patio.

ERIK GRIFFIN San Jose Improv | 10pm, $75

Many will recognize him for his bit role as Montez Walker on Workaholics. Erik Griffin will keep the laughs rolling on into 2016.

FOIE GRAS GRA & CHAMPAGNE Fairmont, San Jose | 8pm, $249

The downtown hotel offers one of the area’s most glamorous ways to end the year. Following a glittering reception, featuring ritzy hors d'oeuvres and Veuve Clicquot Champagne, executive

DRUNKEN SINGALONGS

CRYSTAL PALACE

THE ULTIMATE KARAOKE NYE PARTY

Glasshouse, San Jose | 8pm, $125

Goosetown Lounge, Willow Glen | ’Til 2am, Free

This black-tie extravaganza is advertized as First Street’s premiere party. The stacked offerings include complimentary hors d'oeuvres and party favors while the Bay Area’s Entourage the Band, Comedian Gary Anderson and special guest, DJ Dwayne Taylor keep the entertainment at a high level leading up to the balloon drop. (JF)

LIKE IT RAW Los Gatos Bar and Grill | 7pm, $75

This unpretentious gourmet food and nightlife destination offers a fourcourse, choose-you-own-adventure prix fixe menu. One route you could take is sashimi-grade ahi tacos, a baby arugula salad, “grand dad’s” flat iron steak and a churro sundae. VJ One will be custom mixing a flashy flurry of music videos during the meal. (JF)

BAY AREA SINGLES GIANT NYE DANCE Santa Clara Convention Center | ’Til 2am, $35-$70

Looking to meet someone new?

Celebrate New Year’s Eve with hundreds of Bay Area singles. There will be food and drinks, games with prizes—and a DJ spinning all the hits from the ’60s through today.

FOREVERLAND VER Fox Theatre, Redwood City | 8pm, $40-$60

Moonwalk into 2016 with music by The King of Pop, as Foreverland—a 14-piece Michael Jackson tribute group—plays all the hits. Also: a balloon drop and champagne toast at midnight.

VEGAS NIGHT RockBar Theater, San Jose | 7pm, $50-$500

Let it ride on into 2016 at the RockBar Theater. The former home of the Garden City Casino—now the South Bay’s premier hard rock club—is returning to its roots for a night of table and card games, showgirls and live performances from Enuff Z’Nuff and The Epic Dolls.

FEATURING: REWIND 80S BAND KARAOKE STARTING iN tHE bAR AT 9PM CHAMPAGNE tOAST aT mIDNIGHT

Happy Hour Prices

Belt out some tunes and ring in 2016 at this neighborhood bar’s New Year's Eve karaoke party!

4 to 7 p.m. daily $5 house wine, well drinks, import beers $4 domestic beers

NYE PARTYOKE Blinky’s Can’t Say, Santa Clara | ’Til 2am, Free

Every year, fun-loving NYE party goers let loose for a spectacular night of drinking, dancing and Karaoke at this local watering hole. Party favors will be provided to all paying patrons.

KARAOKE WITH KJ Woodhams Lounge, San Jose | 2pm, Free

Belt out your favorite tunes and share a complimentary midnight champagne toast with KJ Vinnie, Woodhams karaoke DJ.

THE HANGOVER HAIR OF THE DOG

331 Hacienda Ave., Campbell 408.374.3400 • EffiesRestaurantandBar.com

Celebrate New w Year’s Yea ear’ r’s r’s ’s N N’awlins S St Style! ty tyl ylle le! e!

Thurs, Dec. Thurs Thur Dec. 31, 3111,, 6 p.m.-midnight p.m p. p.m. p .m m midnight ight gh ght htt h ve Mus i L i

c!

Buf u fett D Di Dinner iinn nne nn ner n err $ e $35 5 Live Entertainment t ent ntt Champagne toast stt at midnight

Open daily for lunch & dinner

HAPPY HOUR SPECIALS

Cinebar, San Jose | 8am, Free

Ugh. What the hell happened? Where are my pants? My other shoe? And whose floor is this? Nothing makes sense … least of all those new year’s resolutions.

Yeah … no. Those can wait. Phone’s dead, but the sun looks like it’s been up for an hour or so. Cinebar is probably open by now. I’m gonna kick tomorrow.

WE VALIDATE PARKING

5pm -7pm Weekends & DURING SHARKS HOME GAMES

408.295.1300 19 N. Market st. san jose • LouisianaBistroSanJose.com

HANGOVER PARTY Studio 8, San Jose | Free before 11am

This party is free before 11am—perfect for those who only managed to take a quick disco nap from the festivities the night before. Grab some hair of the dog and sweat it out on the dancefloor before you hit your favorite brunch spot.

POST NEW YEAR’S DANCE EXTRAVAGANZA David’s Restaurant, Santa Clara | 8pm, $25-$35

Dance your way into 2016 and enjoy complimentary appetizers at David’s.

Celebrate New Year’s Eve with us Complimentary photo with dinner For reservations, Call 408.453.8120 Open New Year’s Eve at 5pm 1335 N. First St., San Jose, CA www.houseofgenji.net

Japanese Steak House

23 DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

chef Anthony Hsia has planned an extravagantly sumptuous five-course meal where tuna belly tartare, filet mignon and foie gras-stuffed chicken breast will be paired with award-winning vino. (JF)

New Year's Eve at Effie's THURSDAY, DEC. 31

Ngoc Ngo

24 metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

SVDINING

Authentic Affair A REAL CATCH Govea’s Coctel de Camaron sets a standard for shrimp cocktails.

Great eats, top-shelf service make Govea’s Restaurant beloved

BY NGOC NGO

A

long-standing favorite of locals, something about a brightly decorated Mexican restaurant with patterned woven textiles as table cloths exudes authenticity.

Sombreros and paintings hang on the walls. Piñatas are strewn across the front of the restaurant. A Christmas tree with family photos and ornaments stands by the door.

Add to this an array of wet burritos and enchilada options— served in heaping portions—and the result is Govea’s Restaurant in East San Jose.

A long-standing favorite of locals, Govea’s proves authentic does not require being cramped into a dingy hole in the wall. The restaurant is clean, the atmosphere is vibrant and the customer service rivals restaurants of double the price point.

The pozole ($9.25), with a gelatinous pig trotter and hominy, comes piping hot in a large bowl and is a comforting dish for cold days. The satisfying carnitas wet burrito ($6.99), served with chile

verde and sour cream on top, could feed two. Perhaps it was a mistake to order the Estrella combination platter ($12.99) for lunch, as one chicken burrito, a beef enchilada and a chile relleno all covered in red chile sauce, accompanied by Spanish rice and beans, seemed gluttonous.

But no, there is never too much good food, especially with rice this soft and sauce this flavorful.

Govea’s customers expect good, home-style food. It says so in large painted letters on the window.

What is surprising is the quality of service. My ideal experience at a restaurant is to feel attended to but not watched over, and Govea’s staff did just that. Food comes out at a steady pace. Water glasses are frequently refilled. We were seated at a table large enough to support the feast we ordered. The waitress, in her pressed pink shirt and black

apron, took orders from the females first, then males, and offered to serve our starters first.

We opted to have our meal served as it was ready and nibbled on starters throughout. The side of carne asada fries ($6.99) were thick rounds of potatoes topped with carne asada, cheddar cheese, sour cream, jalapeno and guacamole. In true Govea’s fashion, the Tostada de Ceviche ($4.99), which sounded like a small scoop of ceviche on a chip, turned out to be thrice that size. The breaded and fried fish taco ($3.50) was fresh and had a tasty batter. As did the Coctel de Camaron ($10.99), or shrimp cocktail, which came with chunks of fresh avocado and plump, sweetpeeled shrimp.

A long-standing favorite of locals, Govea’s proves authentic does not require being cramped into a dingy hole in the wall.

Govea’s has earned its reputation as a local favorite in the densely populated neighborhood. The portions and prices make the meal a great value while the service goes the extra mile. And don’t miss the small dish of smoky chipotle salsa served with chips at the beginning of the meal.

GOVEA’S RESTAURANT MEXICAN

1996 Tully Rd., San Jose

$

408.270.0973

11 25

“DECOR, DRINKS AND CLASSIC COMFORT DISHES INSPIRE AT EAST COAST ALICE”.

-METRO NEWSPAPERS, DEC. 2015

Showing all Sports. Come in For Pre-Season Football!

14560 Big Basin Way Saratoga • 408•867•1639

Open Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve Hand-Tossed Pizza Book Your Holiday Reservation Now. Large Parties Welcome Lunch Tuesdays - Fridays • Dinner Tuesdays - Saturdays Happy Hour Tues - Fri 4pm - 7pm

1025 W.El Camino Real • Sunnyvale • 408.738.2400 • pezzellas.com

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Pub & Eatery East Coast Comfort Food & Great Craft Beers and Cocktails

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

BITES

à hĩTĻ ĹĻÇ ĹÇõàË TŘįĹ Tļ Bold Knight

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Bold Knight Steakhouse

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1 off

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Any Shorty Sandwich

2 off

$

HULT'S Hult's Restaurant goes huge with a seven-course gala menu ($145) that includes a champagne toast at midnight. Dinner reservations are available between 4-11pm, but anyone who eats at 9:30pm or later is welcome to stay and welcome in the New Year. 165 Los Gatos-Saratoga Rd., Los Gatos. 408.354.3434

Any 12" Sandwich

3 off

$

Any 24" Sandwich

(in maple Leaf Center)

408.246.4007

Amato's #2 2306 Almaden Rd. • San Jose

408.264.4001

One sandwich per coupon per visit. Cannot be combined w/other offers. Expires xpires 1.6.16

Sweet Spot SOUTH BAY’S ONLY ITALIAN WATER ICE OPEN MIC NIGHT THUR. 6-10PM 11AM TO 10PM EVERYDAY 669.350.7873

1807 E. Capitol Expressway (corner of Aborn Rd) San Jose, CA 95121

Last Supper…of 2015 ELEBRATE the past year or ring in the new one, but don’t do it on an empty stomach. Below is a list that includes five- to seven-course dinners, dancing, champagne—we’ve even got a masquerade ball. It’s time to party like it’s 2016, and beyond. —Rita Cameron

$

1162 Saratoga Ave • San Jose

THREESOME Dinner, drinks and balldrop all on one menu.

$1 OFF WITH AD CREPERIE & ICE-CREAM SHOP

WEDDINGS • CORPORATE • EVENT CATERING

CITRUS AT THE HOTEL VALENCIA Dinner and disguises will pair with drinks at Citrus at the Hotel Valencia on Santana Row. Guest will enjoy a five-course dinner and complimentary champagne toast, with two seatings at 6:30pm and 9pm. Afterwards, guests will have access to the Masquerade Gala at Hotel Valencia, which will feature a DJ and midnight snacks. $170 per person, advance reservations and prepayment required. 355 Santana Row #3000, San Jose. 408.423.5400.

VERGE A special prix fixe dinner menu at Verge in Los Gatos offers plenty of options, including a choice of venison, pheasant or sea bass ($99 per person). Dinner, which will be served at two seatings at 7pm and 9pm, includes unlimited California champagne. 140 S. Santa Cruz Ave., Los Gatos. 408.884.1065.

408.884.1065.

THE SEA BY ALEXANDER’S STEAKHOUSE A sumptuous five-course feast ($135 per person) allows guest of The Sea, one of the area’s premier seafood restaurants, to ring in the New Year right. The menu includes choices of oysters, squid risotto with garlic chives, grilled king salmon and foie gras with quince and hazelnuts. A champagne toast is included. 4269 EL Camino Real, Palo Alto. 650.213.1111.

TESTAROSSA WINERY Local winery Testarossa offers a taste of 2016 with a party in its historic cellars.

Tickets ($210) include sparkling wine, Testarossa wine, beer, food stations and passed appetizers. The party will shake to the sounds of Corduroy Jim. Advance ticket purchase required. 300 College Ave., Los Gatos. 408.354.6150.

Angela Aladro mella, via Shutterstock

26

Happy Holidays!

Spend the holidays with

Gordon biersch

Mexican Cuisine & Mezcal Bar

closing early christmas eve

Lunch - Dinner - Catering

Available for Banquets, Corporate & Special Events

closed christmas day

25 W San Fernando St., Downtown San Jose 408-283-9595 • www.mezcalrestaurantsj.com

Winter bock on Tap Early December

pick up a growler of GB beer to bring to your holiday parties!

COME SEE US NEW YEARS EVE!

Asian express! vors of the original

t & delicious fla

Enjoy the fresh, fas

MOUNTAIN VIEW

286 W. El Camino Real

SAN JOSE

397 Saratoga Ave.

SAN JOSE

695 N. Fifth St.

SAN JOSE

3015 McKee Rd.

12.99 12.99 2-MEAL 2-MEAL DEAL! DEAL!

#4 Teriyaki Trio

#3 Chicken Teriyaki

HH

2B

SAN JOSE

5353 Almaden Expwy

MILPITAS

133 Ranch Dr.

#11 Katsu Chicken

Two Special Plates (#1-4 or Katsu Chicken) & 2 Soft Drinks just $12.99 + tax

With coupon. Not valid with other offers or discounts. Exp: 12/31/15

Two Special Plates (#1-4 or Katsu Chicken) & 2 Soft Drinks just $12.99 + tax

#2 Pork Teriyaki

With coupon. Not valid with other offers or discounts. Exp: 1/31/16

HH

2B

SPECIAL NEW YEAR'S EVE DINNER

Special limited menu featuring great steaks, seafood & lobster.

Dinners include unlimited Korbel sparkling wine or Martinelli's sparkling cider, shrimp appetizer, hibachi vegetables, rice, entree, ice cream & party favors (while they last).

DINNERS START AT $35 (ADULTS) $16 (CHILDREN 10 & UNDER) Make your reservation today.

Kyoto Palace Japanese Steakhouse K 408.377.6456 • Pruneyard Center, Campbell • 2nd floor • kyotopalace.com

33 EAST FERNANDO ST. SAN JOSE, CA 95113 408.294.6785 • WWW.GORDONBIERSCH.COM

Authentic Burmese Cuisine

BURMA BISTRO

Experience the unique taste of Burma in Silicon Valley 2135 El Camino real, Santa Clara, CA 95050 Ph: 408-372-5422

www.burmabistro.net Ask about our

$7.99 Lunch Special

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Winter 2015

11 27

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley metrosiliconvalley.com y.com | DECEMB DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

28

metroactive

CHOICES BY:

Andrew Lentz Jeffrey Edalatpour John Flynn Metro Staff

FIREBEATZ

DJ COOCH

*wed BLACK & WHITE Keeble & Shuchat, Palo Alto Wed, 12pm, Free The Palo Alto Camera Club is celebrating its 80th anniversary with a show of black and white photography, now on display in the upstairs gallery of the Keeble & Shuchat camera and photography supply store on California Avenue in Palo Alto. Just as Keeble & Shuchat have long been a part of the mid-Peninsula photography community, so has the Palo Alto Camera Club. Founded in 1935, the group is composed of professional and amateur photographers— some of whom have gone on to national acclaim. (MS)

FIGURATION/ ABSTRACTION Cantor Arts Center, Stanford Wed, 11am, Free One of the questions posed by “Figuration/Abstraction” is this: “Isn’t all art an abstraction of what it represents, to a greater or lesser degree?” Look closely at Roger Shimomura’s portrait of a lady in Lush Life #2. A veiled woman stands on lava red ground underneath a dusky pink sky. The landscape is recognizable, not as a representation of an actual place, but in a universe of its own making. In this sense, figuration isn’t divorced from abstraction: the content is just more readily recognizable. The cubists, of course, are front and center here, as well as Bay Area favorite Richard Diebenkorn. (JE)

*thu *fri GROUP THERAPY Empire Seven Studios, San Jose Thu, 12pm, Free Left of center inside E7S’s rectangular gallery, a black hose—coiled up to spring like a cobra—pours an endless stream of water over disheveled rubber kitchen mats.

Welcome to “The Fountain” by Nicholas Torres, the most interactive of pieces now on display in the Group Therapy show. The gallerist suggested a meaning: the work highlights the unseen workers who labor behindthe-scenes. Another possibility is a call out to Marcel Duchamp’s similarly titled piece of pioneering dadaism. Whatever the case, “Group Therapy” certainly has its moments of absurdism, as well as street signs treated with graffiti, zombie skateboarders, photographs of urban industrial wastelands and drawings that recall 1970s comic books. (JE)

CHRISTMAS DINING GUIDE Silicon Valley Fri, All Day Getting together with family over the holidays can be wonderful.

Doing the dishes afterward? Not so much. That's why we compiled a list of restaurants open on Christmas. Whether dining out on Christmas is a family tradition or a completely new experience, many restaurants all over Silicon Valley will be serving up festive Christmas Eve dinners and lavish Christmas Day brunches. Go to SanJose.com and click on the “Restaurants” tab for our full guide of local spots open this Friday. (MS)

FIREBEATZ Pure Lounge, San Jose Fri, 10pm, $15 Christmas day is reserved for exchanging gifts and sharing company with your cherished relatives. But, after the cottontops have hit the hay, a lull in the X-mas itinerary emerges.

For those looking to hit the dancefloor, Firebeatz will be unleashing their full-throttle, synth-laced bass grooves on the most magical day of the year.

The EDM duo hails from the Netherlands and was listed as one of the top 100 acts in the world

by DJ magazine. They specialize in the type of adrenalized compositions that would perfectly punctuate the explosions, drifts and aerial acrobatics of a climactic chase scene in a Fast and Furious movie. (JF)

* concerts HEARTLESS

Jan 3 at The Ritz

QUEENSRYCHE Jan 7 at RockBar Theater

UGWA NEW YEARS EVIL Jan 9 at The Ritz

EUROPE Jan 19 at RockBar Theater

THE ADICTS Jan 23 at The Ritz

YAMATO DRUMMERS OF JAPAN Jan 23 at Stanford

SUPER BOWL OPENING NIGHT Feb 1 at SAP Center

PAN ASIAN MUSIC FESTIVAL Feb 1 at Bing Concert Hall

WWE LIVE Feb 6 at SAP Center

STRANGELOVE Feb 4 at RockBar Theater

SUPER BOWL 50 Feb 7 at RockBar Theater

BLACK SABBATH Feb 9 at SAP Center

VALENTINES OLD SCHOOL JAM Feb 12 at SAP Center

DISNEY ON ICE: FROZEN

SOCIAL BALLROOM DANCING Cubberley Community Center, Palo Alto Fri, 8pm, $9 For those who’ve always wanted to learn how to dance, the Cubberley Community Center offers affordable classes to dancers of all levels—beginner, intermediate or advanced—on a drop-in basis. Instructors teach a wide variety of dance styles, including swing, hustle, rumba, tango, waltz and more.

Classes are held every Friday and Saturday night. Each session begins with a lesson and is followed by an open floor for dancing. Refreshments are served each night and are included in the cover charge. (MS)

*sat DJ COOCH

HEARTLESS

*sun

Improv, San Jose Sat, 7pm, $15

RockBar Theater, San Jose Sat, 7pm, $10-$15

The Continental, San Jose Sun, 4pm, Free

DJ Cooch had been spinning records for nine years when he realized that he was getting some laughs in between his sets. So he decided to leave the turntables at home and try some stand-up.

Now, after 11 years of comedy, Cooch has performed alongside big-time observationalists like Carlos Mencia, Arsenio Hall and Tommy Chong. Recently, he was inducted into the renowned Improv Hall of Fame for his comedic prowess. His giddy set hits on topics like white parents, the racist accessories of the vehicles in Transformers and the universal fear of Mexican people for the Cucuy. (JF)

Classic rock heroines Heart kicked the male-dominated world of rock in the nuts. Heartless—the Heart tribute band who take their name from the 1977 hit—gladly pick up the baton. At the core of this Livermore-based tribute band is Linda Boudreau in the role of Ann Wilson, with Gail Eaton as rhythm-guitarist and sister Nancy.

Is there anyone not moved by the fever dream of “Magic Man,” the propulsive chug of “Barracuda,” the epic build of “Crazy On You,” and of course the folk-prog stomp of “Heartless”? As a bonus, the band’s extensive set list is punctuated with Led Zeppelin cuts. (AL)

Every Sunday this SoFA District lounge turns into the one of the more cross-pollinated club experiences in the Bay Area, with a tasty blend of Afrobeat, Afrohouse and “world riddims,” which you can take to mean everything from Nigerian funk, or ‘naija’ (lately morphing into something called ‘hip life’) to the uptempo clip of kuduro and house-y remixes of everything from hip-hop, dub, reggae and any club sound informed by the African diaspora. With a rotating cast of DJs—DJ Prince, Shea Butter, DJ Tesfa and The C.M.E.— the mood can be future cool or as frenzied as a Fela Kuti house party. (AL)

TAMBA!

Feb 17-22 at SAP Center

RIHANNA Feb 28 at SAP Center

CASH’D OUT Mar 11 at The Ritz

JUSTIN BIEBER Mar 17 at SAP Center

STYX Mar 17 at City National Civic

THE REVEREND HORTON HEAT Mar 18 at The Ritz

ELLIE GOULDING Apr 6 at SAP Center

YANNI Mar 19 at City National Civic

SELENA GOMEZ May 11 at SAP Center

PRONG Jun 1 at RockBar Theater

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metroactive ARTS

Make Yourself HOT ROD Many of the artists on display at MACLA’s exhibit, ‘Custom Lives: Rasquache Rennaissance’ are interested in the aesthetic value and metaphorical significance of the automobile.

A new MACLA exhibit explores the shaping of the Latino identity

BY NICK VERONIN

T

HE IMMIGRANT EXPERIENCE is one of perpetual reinvention, as well as enduring remembrance. It is a constant struggle between the desire to assimilate into a new culture and retain a sense of what came before.

In an effort to strike a balance betwixt the traditions of the motherland and the customs of their new home, immigrant communities invariably create hybrid languages, new genres of music and unique styles of art.

In Latin American culture, these mash-ups can be seen in the vernacular of “Spanglish,” the sounds of Rock en Español, and in the group exhibition, “Custom Lives: Rasquache Renaissance,” now on display at MACLA—or Movimiento de Arte y Cultura Latino Americana.

The San Jose-based gallery, performance space and community organization is currently showing a collection of work by nine Latino artists—all of it focused on the ways in which Latin Americans have customized their possessions, their homes and themselves to reflect their blended identities.

The exhibit, which runs through spring 2016 leads up to a March performance of the one-man show

’57 Chevy. The stage piece by artist Ric Salinas and comedian Cris Franco explores the development of a Latino immigrant family over multiple generations, as they move from the barrio to the suburbs.

According to Joey Reyes, curator of engagement and dialog at MACLA, the piece takes its name from the car that was used to transport the family from one country to the next, and which comes to symbolize both social mobility and a way into American car culture.

Cars factor big into the “Custom Lives” exhibit. As Reyes explains, Chicano lowrider culture grew out of a merging of Latin American aesthetics and the U.S. fascination with hot rods.

A piece of ready-made art by Carlos Rolón, a.k.a. Dzine, is a collection of lowrider rims, arranged in the pattern of a lotus on the wall. Constructing the piece for the artist—who directed Reyes and his team remotely—required that they go to lowrider clubs to find the appropriate rims. “It took us to communities that we never go,” he says.

Gilbert “Magu” Luján shapes cartoonlike classic cars from clay. Betsabeé Romero also has a flowering pattern up on one of the gallery’s walls. Her piece is constructed mostly of car mirrors and symbolizes moving forward and back through time and space.

“For her, the vehicle is also about migration—moving across borders, moving across space, moving across time,” Reyes says of Romero’s piece, pointing to the Mesoamerican symbolism painted on the mirrors, such as the snake eating itself, alluding to the notion held by many pre-Columbian religions that time is cyclical.

Cars are not the only jumping off point for the work displayed in the “Custom Lives” exhibit. Ana Serrano uses cardboard to craft brightly colored reconstructions of the security gates, which protected the doors and windows of the homes in her neighborhood.

“It’s taking the thing that could be synonymous with danger and still having some way of trying to camouflage it,” Reyes says. “It’s like you know there are issues of security in your neighborhood, but still there are the aesthetic concerns of how it functions in your space. How do you camouflage something that you live with every day to transcend these issues of security in your neighborhood?”

All of the work on display in the current MACLA exhibit is part of a broader tradition known as rasquache—a term, which Reyes says was once derogatory.

“It means ‘discarded’ or ‘throwaway,’” he says. However, in the context of rasquache art, it means “creating something out of nothing—using discarded materials and imbuing them with meaning.”

For impoverished immigrant families, who were coming to the United States from Mexico, Central and South America with little more than the clothes on their backs, repurposing discarded materials often made all the difference, he says. People fashioned planters out of old tires and planted flowers in them, for example—making a space for something beautiful out of something that would have otherwise just ended up in the dump.

THRU

MAR 13 Wed-Sun 12pm

CUSTOM LIVES: RASQUACHE RENAISSANCE MACLA, San Jose

11 31

DECEMBER 12–27 2015 SAN JOSE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS Supported, in part, by a Cultural Affairs grant from the City of San Jose

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*stage SWIFT JUSTICE In 1933, San Jose made national headlines when Brooke Hart was kidnapped and murdered, his alleged killers were caught, but lynched in St. James Park by a mob before they ever stood trial. This is the play about that ugly episode. $15-$38. Jan 15-24. Theatre on San Pedro Square. San Jose.

TIGERS BE STILL After Sherry Wickman graduates with a degree in art therapy, she falls into a depression while living with her parents. Eventually she finds a job opportunity that gives her life new purpose.

Now her life is perfect except for a host of family problems and a tiger that has escaped from the zoo. Jan 21-Feb 21. $17-$32. City Lights Theater Company. San Jose.

DEATH OF A SALESMAN The winner of 13 Tonys, nine Drama Desk Awards, and the Pulitzer, this American classic follows the last days of Willy Loman as he deals with disintegration of his family’s hopes for the American Dream. Jan 15- 31. $32. Lucie Stern Theatre. Palo Alto Players. Palo Alto.

COMEDYSPORTZ IMPROV COMEDY Laugh until your stomach hurts at this improv battle of wits, all audience-sourced and suitable for the entire family. Ongoing. $12-$15.

Camera 4, San Jose.

MIDDLETOWN Winner of the The Horton Foote Prize for excellence in American Theater, this play follows Mary Swanson as she discovers the complex underbelly of this superficially honest and welcoming town. Jan 28-Feb 21. $18-$28 Bus Barn Theater.

Los Altos Stage Company.

Los Altos.

THE MOUNTAIN TOP In April of 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis. This awardwinning production inserts spunky motel maid Camae,

who bends facts toward the fantastic. Jan 15-31. $10-$35.

Pear Theatre. Mountain View.

FOREVER PLAID Sparky, Smudge, Jinx and Frankie formed a flannel jacket quartet who perished on the way to their first gig in a collision with a school bus. But now, the ethereal fellas will get one more shot to hit a heavenly harmony. $20-$35. Jan 30-Feb 21.

South Bay Musical Theatre.

Saratoga Civic Theatre.

VALLEY OF THE HEART Written and directed by the famed Luis Valdez, this bold epic throws the divide between American ideals and actions into powerful relief. This play is performed in conjunction with the activist company, El Teatro Campesino. Feb 10-Mar 6. $55-$65. The San Jose Stage.

*art MUSEUMS NUMU LOS GATOS “The NASA Paintings” by Rick Guidice. Thru Feb 14.

“The Art of Social Justice: Woody Guthrie and the Power of Songwriting.” Thru May 16. Los Gatos.

More listings:

METROACTIVE.COM HISTORY PARK SAN JOSE “Slugs, Dingbats, and Tramp Printing” The printing press is one of the most important inventions in human history.

See the machine that printed the first newspaper in California. Thru Jan 31.

San Jose.

LOS GATOS COMPANY “Zulugrass Jewelry Gallery,” featuring the colorful clothing and ornaments adorned by the Maasai tribe of the Great Rift Valley of Kenya and Tanzania.

“Woodcarvings of Val Gardena, Italy,” featuring handcrafted wood-carved figures. Los Gatos.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART “Maker Space” Thru Jan 17. “Artists including Me: William Wegman,” “Diebenkorn in the Bedroom, DeFeo in the Den: Generous Gifts from the Dixon and Barbara Farley Collection,” “Character Studies: Clay from the Collection” Thru Feb 7.

Tue-Sun, 11am-5pm, closed Mon. San Jose.

SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF QUILTS & TEXTILES “Earth Stories” 25th Anniversary Exhibition. Thru Feb 28. San Jose.

THE NASA PAINTINGS The space agency commissioned local artist Rick Guidice to create illustrations of pie-in-the-sky space colonies.

COMMUNITY SCHOOL OF MUSIC AND ARTS “The Sum of Parts” Artwork from CSMA's Visual Art Classes. Thru Jan 18.

Mountain View.

DOWNTOWN YOGA SHALA “San Shui” Paintings by Russell Altice Case. San Jose.

EMPIRE SEVEN STUDIOS “Black Stamp Studio” Thru Dec 30.

PHO69 Watercolors by Made’ Sukerti Berg. San Jose.

PSYCHO DONUTS Works by John Renzel, Lacey Bryant, Nicolas Caesar, Murphy Adams, Christine Benjamin, Michael Foley, Michael Borja, Valery Milovic, Carlos Villez, Eric Joyner, Laura Callin Bennett, John Hageman and Robert McColley. San Jose.

alternative concert. Free. San Pedro Square Market. San Jose.

MUSIC AT THE MARKET A hotbed of live jazz talent, organized by San Jose Jazz.

Every Fri, 7-9pm. San Pedro Square Market. San Jose.

TOSPS TUESDAYS A weekly showcase of Bay Area’s budding music scene across all genres. Most Tuesdays, 7pm. Thru Dec. Theatre on San Pedro Square. San Jose.

CANTOR ARTS CENTER

TRITON MUSEUM OF ART

“Piranesi’s Paestum: Master Drawings Uncovered” Thru Jan 4. “Artists at Work” demystifies the creative process. Thru Jan 18. “Richard Diebenkorn: The Sketchbooks Revealed” Thru Feb 8.

“Edward Hopper: New York Corner” Thru Feb 8. Stanford.

“Menagerie” Selections from the permanent collection.

Thru Jan 3. “A Subtle Edge” by Christopher Winfield. Thru Jan 3. “Life. Water” by Yao Pi-Hsu. Thru Jan 3. Santa Clara.

2TWENTY5

First Fridays feature new artwork, demonstrations, and conversations with artists. San Jose.

CHILDREN’S DISCOVERY MUSEUM

Alternative Art next to fresh duds. San Jose.

KALEID GALLERY

STUDIO ROCK CLIMBING GYM

“Hark! 2015” Holiday Show.

San Jose.

“Petrified” Works by Andy Wallace. San Jose.

MEZCAL

TECHSHOP SAN JOSE

Art by J. Danniel. Mezcal Restaurant, San Jose.

Daily Classes offered on Art and Technology. San Jose.

*events CHRISTMAS IN THE PARK

“Imagination Playground” Put together mega-sized foam tinker toys to construct an endless array of possibilities.

San Jose.

DE SAISSET MUSEUM

GALLERIES

ANNO DOMINI “Orbital—Cut up and Rewired” A reimagining of a single 30foot self-portrait. Thru Dec 12.

San Jose.

GALLERY HOUSE “Artful” Holiday Show. Thru Dec 24. Palo Alto.

HIGHER FIRE CLAYSPACE

SAN JOSE INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART Jim Campbell: New Work and Collaboration with Jane Rosen. Thru Feb 13. San Jose.

SEEING THINGS GALLERY “Unassuming Psycho” by Daryl Angel. San Jose.

“Gold Rush” Exploring the regional symbolism of gold through art, sports and culture.

Jan 15-Mar 13. Santa Clara.

ART BOUTIKI

MONTALVO ARTS CENTER

WORKS SAN JOSE

Monthly Midtown Beat Show.

San Jose.

“Botanica Poetica” New Work by Lucas Art Fellows.

Thru Jan 31. Saratoga.

Pieces from benefit art auction. San Jose.

EUPHRAT MUSEUM

Jazz paintings by Bruni Sablan. Mon-Sat, 1-6pm. San Jose.

Art and photography created by students at De Anza College. Cupertino.

BRUNI GALLERY

PALO ALTO ART CENTER “Creative Ecology” What Linda Gass discovered at cooley landing. Thru Jan 22.

*concerts DAYDREAM NATION San Pedro Square Market hosts its monthly last Saturday,

OFF THE GRID A rotating cast of food trucks and music acts characterize this weekly event. Sat. Free.

Computer History Museum.

Mountain View.

*opera CAFFE FRASCATI Opera Night. First Friday of every month. San Jose.

The annual tradition takes over the center of the city, filling La Plaza de Cesar Chavez with 60 animated dioramas, a 60-foot tall glittering Christmas Tree and carnival attractions like ferris wheels and fun houses.

All Week. San Jose.

Making Eyes AN AFFAIR TO FORGET ‘Carol’ features powerful acting and strong costumes, but is a ‘cold fish of a film.’

Blanchett and Mara’s performances can’t save ‘Carol’ from itself

BY RICHARD VON BUSACK

T

HE TITLE OF Patricia Highsmith’s 1952 novel, The Price of Salt, contains a dead idiom— the price of salt was something people supposedly chatted about when they weren’t talking seriously. “Girl talk,” as they would have said once.

The film adaptation by Todd Haynes—his first feature film in 8 years—is titled Carol.

This single-gender romance, which almost hypnotizes, emulates

the 1950s Hollywood melodrama of throbbing hearts, stiff jaws and immaculate wardrobes. But it’s missing something. Salt?

Carol (Cate Blanchett) is a fur-coated, upper-class housewife from New Jersey, who meets the woman that will change her life across the counter at the toy shop at Frankenberg’s department store.

Therese (Rooney Mara) is a lonely, shy and self-effacing shopgirl, with a taste for photography. The two have a lunch that leads to deeper things.

One of the problems facing this liaison is that Carol isn’t quite single—she’s in the middle of divorce and custody hearings with her

husband, Harge (Kyle Chandler does the Van Heflin role). The name is short for Hargess, but it would seem to be a combination of “harsh” and “large.” Harge’s own side of the triangle doesn’t add tension. He’s a pushy, sullen WASP—a life-ruiner who wants to grab Carol’s daughter, Rindy.

When the ladies make a decision to flee for a time—to just get in the car and drive—it precipitates both the slow-simmering affair and the crisis that endangers it. The couple don’t pay sufficient attention to a travelling salesman who tries to befriend them during their winter trip through Iowa’s most nowhere small towns.

This peddler calls himself “Tommy Tucker” (Cory Michael Smith, who plays the deranged Edward “The Riddler” Nygma on “Gotham”).

The last time Haynes dove for the wreckage of ’50s cinema in a film, in 1992’s Far From Heaven, I wrote “it

R

CAROL

118 MIN

CineArts, Palo Alto

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metroactive FILM

sure gives you a turn seeing the age you were born into treated as if it were as far away as Elizabethan England.”

Twenty years later, Haynes makes this near past seem even more quaint.

It may just be that Blanchett—cast in a mad housewife role that Joan Crawford would have done—is so scarlet of mouth, so full of force and stride, that she breaks the frame. It’s hard to believe this intimidating lady as a woman who can be shamed. For comparison, Carol’s former lover (Sarah Paulson) is far more easygoing about her sexuality. Carol has Crawford-like lines: “Just when you think it can’t get any worse, you run out of cigarettes.”

But Blanchett doesn’t have the Crawford frailty, evinced in, say, Autumn Leaves (1956). Mara is such a quiet little blank, in her lonely garret. At one point, Therese denounces herself as a woman who says “yes” to everything— so Carol has to do the thinking for both of them, in the Casablanca sense.

A story of lesbians that doesn’t even mention that word is carried out with Haynes’ attention to the formality of old movies, and costumes by Sandy Powell—she also did the wardrobe for his richer Far From Heaven. Yet Carol seems damp with the winter weather. Even as it presumes we’re believers in the social justice angle of the melodrama, it also presumes an award-season love of Christmas. (“Silver Bells” is on the soundtrack—that would have been a fresh song back then, having made its debut in a 1951 film.) For budgetary reasons, Haynes had to film in Cincinnati’s old town, making for a dark and depopulated New York.

You want to treat a movie this wellintentioned with respect, and love it for how thick it is with romantic cigarette smoke and with simmering flirtation—Blanchett has a lethal, liquefying glance. It has moments that get you in the throat, as when, after a troubled date, Therese weeps to herself on the train, doubled by her reflection on the dark window. But it’s a cold fish of a film, beautiful but taxing. Just as the actors are on their marks for every scene, the audience always knows where it stands.

metroactive FILM a secret important to the rebellion is hidden aboard a droid they both know—the robot is typically wordless but eloquent. Darth Vader’s iron dream is being continued, more than 30 years later, by a new helmeted menace called Kylo Ren (Adam Driver). The interesting angle of Star Wars: The Force Awakens is that there’s a Louis Napoleon streak to this Ren—the contrast between him and Lord Vader is like the difference between the great Napoleon’s descendant and the tinhorn emperor who called himself Napoleon III. Driver is puffy of lip and Frank Langella-ish in demeanor.

People bowed when Vader walked by, but Ren is not as intimidating.

He endures back talk from one of his fellow officers, and he has to like it—this film indicates that there

Now Playing STAR WARS: THE FORCE AWAKENS If there’s nothing that pleases an audience more than a lady with a sword, consider their rapture at the sight of a lady with a lightsaber.

The brave Daisy Ridley makes this movie, more than the battalions of animators, more than the glorious locations in Ireland, Iceland and Abu Dhabi. Ridley’s character, Rey, is a junkyard scavengeress, circumstantially marooned on the dune planet Jakku; there she encounters an Imperial army deserter named FN2187, or “Finn” (John Boyega, of Attack the Block).

Finn is on the run after he helped a rebel pilot (Oscar Isaac) escape;

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JENNIFER JASON LEIGH

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“

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is that there’s a certain amount of jurisdictional friction between the branches of the Imperial Army, just like there was in Hitler’s Reich.

When he’s thwarted he smashes the furniture with his light saber, instead of doing the more forceful thing of strangling a subordinate to make himself feel better. From the X-Fighter dogfights, to the beeping droids to the “Pong” level graphics on the spaceship screens, this is all stuff we’ve seens before. But one reprise is tender: a meeting between the General Leia Organa (Carrie Fisher) and the grizzled but still game Han Solo (Harrison Ford); the dialogue is lame but the exchange of glances say it all between them.

As an old hand to these movies (and as one who feels that they could melt all of them down except for The Empire Strikes Back) I couldn’t get enough of the frost of disenchantment when these old lovers sight one another. The way Star Wars: TFA is built, it can have neither ending or beginning. It’s leading from a sequel and heading to a sequel; a temporary victory over the planet-blasting fascists of the First Order leads to new adventures farther down the line. Though the new characters acquit themselves with fierceness, I had more eyes for

the old Bogartian hustler Solo and his grey-haired Wookie, still alive and scheming. (RvB)

THE DANISH GIRL (R, 119 min.) Denmark’s ‘Lili Elbe” was one of the earliest, if not the first, male-to-female transsexuals, and in a way she was a martyr to the primitiveness of the surgery. A film based on David Ebershoff’s novel about Elbe roasted in development hell for years, likely because there was no way to reconcile the bloodiness of the surgeries with the chiffon and the satin. Under the direction of Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) the transsexual artist Einar Wegener (Eddie Redmayne) is transformed by the care of the solicitous wife—behind every great transsexual, as behind any other great man in a movie, is a great woman. Modeling in stockings to help his wife Gerda Wegener (Alicia Vikander) finish a painting, Einar is spellbound by women’s clothes: “What you drew, I became,” he says whether or not his wife had any intention to become that kind of Pygmalion. Redmayne, stroking the gowns and furs denied to him, makes moments in The Danish Girl an unwanted reminder of Ed Wood’s Glen or Glenda (a film that

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in the light of this new movie seem more ahead of its time than ever).

As Gerda, Alicia Vikander tries to animate this high-toned weeper by playing it big and bohemian.

Vikander goes insouciant, flashing her obsidian eyes and wielding a cig holder. This style didn’t seem anachronistic; as in Ex Machina, Vikander is remarkable at striking a balance between the glamorous and the steelier qualities. What really seemed anachronistic is the way Gerda explains the concept of the male gaze to a portly client sitting for his portrait, as if she were Laura Mulvey straight out of a time machine. The real Gerda was far more exotic than director Tom Hooper (The King’s Speech) allows; she’s toned down to a one-woman man tempted by a fictional lover played by Matthew Schoenaerts Gabriel from Far From the Madding Crowd. “Pretty Pictures” is one of the production companies for The Danish Girl—the coast of Denmark, shot like the Scottish highlands, and it’s always pretty, whether watching Redmayne sweetly waste away or getting queer bashed in a Parisian park. The movie’s intentions are good, but it’s made for grannies.

(RvB)

TRUMBO

BEST ORIGINAL SCREENPLAY QUENTIN TARANTINO BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS JENNIFER JASON LEIGH

*(DRAM A)

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A fine ensemble cast is the draw in the biopic of the much-honored screenwriter Dalton Trumbo, who served 11 months in the federal penitentiary for refusing to name names of communists to Congress.

In the title role is the ever-likable Bryan Cranston, mustachioed and twinkling, who uses pseudonyms and fronts to endure a blacklist of many years. Director Jay Roach’s budget is modest—he can’t follow the Trumbo family to Mexico, where they lived for a time. But the cast is a cross-section of studio Hollywood from the important (Helen Mirren’s gossip columnist Hedda Hopper) to the minor (baseball-bat wielding B-movie producer Frank King, played with the usual gusto by John Goodman). While big names such as Kirk Douglas, Otto Preminger and John Wayne contend over Trumbo’s fate, Trumbo is more about the awards the writer got than the tone of Trumbo’s work; to Roach, it’s more important that Trumbo wrote Exodus than that black jewel of film noir, Gun Crazy. And if Mirren is convincing, she’s not convincing enough to make us believe Hedda Hopper Jew-baited Louis B. Mayer to his face. Moreover Trumbo gives Douglas co-credit for breaking the blacklist when it was Preminger who defied the blacklist many months before Douglas followed suit. The

YOUTH Vexing but visually immaculate study of a season at an expensive Swiss spa where two very old friends contemplate their next steps in life. Retired composer and conductor Fred Ballinger (Michael Caine) is turning down the Queen of England’s invitation to perform his best known work. Fred’s longtime friend and one-time rival in love is Mick (Harvey Keitel), a hardworking film director helming the movie that will be his testament.

In a similar mood, a young actor (a porn-’stashed Paul Dano, the most squandered of the luminaries here) chafes over being famous for playing a robot in a movie blockbuster, though his best work was in other movies, little seen by audiences.

From Alpine meadow to cuckoo clock shop, these pensive characters dawdle, dealing with the weight of age and the contradictions of the artistic life. The apercus fly (“There’s no such thing as inspiration, there is fermentation.”) Watching Youth is like watching a roman a clef in which you can’t figure out who the characters are supposed to be; Jane Fonda’s Brenda Morel, supposedly a coarse movie star who slept her way to the top, seems to originate in a ’50s movie. Director Paolo Sorrentino (The Great Beauty) is incapable of an ugly frame, but the problem is that this can also be said of a lot luxury automobile TV commercial makers.

Caine’s decay, seen in ruthless closeup, puts you in the proper mood to lament the ravages of age, and yet it’s the periphery where the action seems to be. If Alex Macqueen steals scenes as the Queen’s representative, maybe it’s because he actually has a job to do. (RvB)

Streaming A VERY MURRAY CHRISTMAS A Christmas miracle: see this and you won’t hate Miley anymore. Sofia Coppola—deep in her comfort zone as a director—leads this brief and charming pastiche of the cheap old TV network holiday specials. Some will remember these programs, wrought out of a Burbank soundstage and some apparent passersby—“Why, look who’s at the door! Foster Brooks!”—hosted by some tuxedoed, aging, and reluctant celeb. Poor Bill Murray—there was a freak snowstorm. Stranded are all the guests, including Pope Francis and Iggy Azalea, who were to join him live at the Bemelmans Bar of the Hotel Carlyle for some song and reminiscence. But with Bill’s bosom pal, Paul Shaffer, at the piano, the holidays get rung in. A just-passing-by Chris Rock is forced to duet with Murray on “Do You Hear What I Hear?” Maya Rudolph emulates the Shirelles, and doubles with Rashida Jones to sing the Kirsty MacColl part of “Fairytale of New York.” Finally, a special fantasy

appearance by none other than George Clooney and Miley Cyrus. Her rendition of “Silent Night” proves to be a song that one can neither massacre nor improve: the world’s worst singer and the world’s best singer are on equal footing with that one. Still, Cyrus is rather little and sweet in a red fur-trimmed elf dress, and Murray hoists her as if she were Tiny Tim. “Soiled Kimono” cocktails are similarly hoisted in honor of Mr. Mike O’Donoghue. Murray’s long-ago TV pose as an unctuous, insensitive crooner of the Jack Jones school turns out to conceal pretty good pipes. Calm and bright, like the song says, this strangely limber, beautifully melancholy performer shows the virtue of taking it easy.

(Netflix Streaming.) (RvB)

VALLEY OF THE DOLLS (1967) A Christmassy entertainment—rich, appalling, a wattle-shaking turkey, laughable to the young and the old alike, egregious in almost every aspect, except for the fine snow scenes and cityscapes shot by the renowned William Daniels, and John Williams’ soundtrack. (Dionne Warwick fans

cinnamon candy.) Duke’s collapse in an off-Broadway alley at the end is, as Oscar Wilde wrote of the death of Dickens’ Little Nell, something you’d have to have a heart of stone to weep at. Duke aside, this movie deserves particular scorn for the way it sucks up the French New Wave in avant-garde photo montage and color, and also for the drooling way it exploits the hell out of the ill-fated Sharon Tate’s breasts, while denouncing French movies as dirty skin flicks.

While most fans prefer to watch Duke go through withdrawal inch by inch, Tate’s “decline of Jennifer North” sequence, complete with lipsmacking French director, is perhaps the height of silliness. If Hitchcock was the first to show the inside of a toilet bowl in a movie, this is the first movie to have a vengeful bitch washing another vengeful bitch’s wig in the toilet.

(Netflix Streaming.)

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of the YEAR

BEST PICTURE CRITICS’ CHOICE AWARD NOMINATIONS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE

W I NNER

NEW YORK FILM CRITICS CIRCLE AWARDS INCLUDING

BEST PICTURE

SCREEN ACTORS GUILD AWARD® NOMINATIONS

BEST ACTRESS

CATE BLANCHETT

BEST SUPPORTING ACTRESS ROONEY MARA

, STEPHEN HOLDEN

THE BEST FILM OF ” THE YEAR! “

, REX REED

++++

“

AFLAWLESSLY TRIUMPH! ACTED,

CHI-RAQ This new Spike Lee joint is about women in Chicago following the path of Aristophanes’ Lysistrata: after a baby is killed by a gangster’s stray bullet, the women of the area go on a sex strike until a truce between warring sides can be declared. The cast (Wesley Snipes, Nick Cannon, Angela Bassett, Jennifer Hudson, Samuel L. Jackson, Dave Chappelle) is unimprovable. Lee on racial politics always demands to be heard, but his take on sexual politics has been a lot more problematic … remember She Hate Me? Unseen by our reviewers. (RvB)

also get a serving of a title theme that’s way better built than the script.) In the trad of dozens of three-girl movies, it follows a trio of ingenues as they are ground up by the business known as show.

Most of the story is seen through the eyes of the least interesting character, Barbara Parkins’ Anne, who has a tormented relationship with an Englishoid writer (Paul Burke) who himself can’t decide if he wants to write novels or be an agent. The film is legendary as a camp classic because of the way star Patty Duke’s acting reach exceeds her grasp—her Neely O’Hara is a daisy-fresh song and dance woman turned into an infamous meltdown-prone gorgon by the prescription med Hallidol. “Dolls,” get it? (That proprietary pharmaceutical name is not mentioned—the pills here are anonymous red capsules in the tasty red shade of Red Hots

SENSITIVELY WRITTEN AND DIRECTED, AND DEEPLY, INTENSELY IMPORTANT.” , PETER TRAVERS

++++

“

ONE OF THE YEAR’S VERY BEST FILMS.

I WANTED TO CHEER! ”

NOW PLAYING IN THEATRES EVERYWHERE CHECK LOCAL LISTINGS FOR THEATRES AND SHOWTIMES / NO PASSES ACCEPTED ATTENTION AMPAS AND GUILD MEMBERS: Your card and picture ID will admit you and a guest to any performance as follows (subject to seating availability): AMC will admit: AMPAS, ACE, ADG, ASC, BAFTA, CAS, DGA, HFPA, MPEG, MPSE, PGA, and WGA (Mon-Thur only excluding holidays). CINEMARK will admit guild member only: AMPAS, DGA, PGA, and WGA (Valid 7 days a week).Please check newspaper circuit listing for theatre locations & showtimes. Theatre list subject to change.

STARTS FRIDAY, DECEMBER 25 NOWPALOPLAYING ALTO CinéArts at Palo Alto Square (650) 493-0128

CHECK DIRECTORIES CAMPBELL SAN JOSE Camera 7 Pruneyard CinéArts Santana Row FORNOSHOWTIMES PASSES (408) 559-6900 (408) 554-7010 ACCEPTED

35 DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

lucky writer has a charming, gritty family here—Diane Lane as his wife and Elle Fanning as his daughter; casting this skillful makes you tend to cut this film some slack, even while knowing better. (RvB)

36 metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

metroactive MUSIC

Holiday Horns BE HAPPY James Fenwicke crafts plodding indie rock with plenty of brass textures in Plantain.

Plantain bring music from new, ‘rocking’ record to The Caravan

BY NICK VERONIN

J

AMES FENWICKE, former multiinstrumentalist for The Mumlers, is coming home for the holidays—and he is bringing the gift of new music with him.

Fenwicke—or JF, as he prefers to be called—is returning to his native San Jose from New Orleans, where he recently moved to pursue a degree in the field of audiology at Louisiana State University.

In the wake of The Mumlers’ disbandment, JF started his own project, which he dubbed Plantain.

It is an appropriate moniker.

Similar to the island climes where his band’s namesake grows, JF’s tunes are plodding and breezy, like a day at the beach—a super bummedout beach, that is.

His debut LP, released in 2012, is titled Fall of a Candy Empire, and it sounds at times very much like the soundtrack to a gloomy day spent at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.

Album opener, “Pale Shade Of Blue,” mixes sad horns, a seasick and churning organ, and washes of reverberant guitar strokes into a melancholic base for a

tale about a relationship that just isn’t working out.

“So, let’s pick our battles and not pick our wounds,” he sings in his yearning, reedy voice. It’s easy to imagine the scene: a pair of disenchanted lovers, sitting on a cold bench, the biting ocean breeze weaving in and out of the words as a rickety merry-go-round whirls.

One can hear that JF was taking notes during his time with the Mumlers. That band’s frontman, Will Sprott, was—and remains today, as a solo artist—a master of spinning tales of woeful resignation over wind-and-brass-accented indie rock.

JF was in the group from its formation, around 2005, until its dissolution around 2011, and he will be the first to admit that Sprott and The Mumlers have had a lasting impact on his music.

“Being in that band inspired the

way I write songs,” he says. “I’ve always liked Will’s songwriting.”

The Plantain frontman and songwriter also credits the time he spent in The Mumlers for sharpening his abilities as an arranger—a skill that can be heard quite clearly on Candy Empire, as various wind and brass instruments weave in and out of the compositions effortlessly.

But JF and the music of Plantain is much more than a continuation of The Mumlers. For starters, the time JF has spent in New Orleans has rubbed off on him.

“It’s great to be in that city,” he says. “There are just so many interesting places to go. There is a whole lot going on, both musically and culturally.” In particular, he’s been inspired by the city’s rich history of brass music.

“It’s opened my eyes to what it would sound like if you had a really big brass band,” JF says, referring to the large brass ensembles he’s encountered walking around the French Quarter. “And if everybody is just playing super loud.”

When he and the rest of Plantain take the stage at The Caravan on Dec. 23, they’ll be playing music from their forthcoming album, which JF says is basically finished—“I’m just waiting on mastering and pressing.” The new record will be more boisterous than anything Plantain has done in the past, he says.

“This one, I think, sounds more rocking,” JF says. “I enjoy listening to this album. I think it’s a fun album. It’s more leisurely.”

However, JF is hesitant to say there is a direct line to be traced between his move to New Orleans and his new record’s energy level. After all, much of the material was written before he left for The South. And besides, he says, “I grew up [in San Jose]. There are lots of memories.”

Fenwicke’s band will be joined at The Caravan by another Big Easy band, Hawn, as well as San Jose doom folk duo, Oddly Even.

DEC

23

PLANTAIN

10PM FREE

The Caravan Lounge, San Jose

11 37

Eve Party

ThuRs, December 31 .................................... $20 cover charge DJ 8:00pm-12:30am Complimentary champagne toast & party favors Ʋ2Ƶgf JACKROSEBAR.COM 18840 SARATOGA-LOS GATOS RD LOS GATOS, CA

NEW YEARS EVE

Karaoke with KJ Vinnie with party favors and a FREE midnight champagne toast

New Year' s Eve Party 9pm-2am

Complimentary Champagne Toast at Midnight Party favors Dancing

THE

Woodhams W dham ounge ge Wooodh mss LLounge 4475 44 475 75 SStevens tevens te vens Creek ve Cre eekk Blvd Blv lvd Clara 408.244.2899 SSanta Sant Sa ant nta C Cl lar ara • 40 4 8.24 8.

8.24 2 4.

4.2 28 2 89 99 9 M-Sat:2P-2A Sun 12:30P-2A M M-SSaat at:2P t:2 2P P-2 2A • SSu un 12 1 2:3 30P 0P-2 2A

2942 S. Bascom Ave., San Jose 95124

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

New Year’s

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

10 38

MARKET M T TH F DEC 24 | 7:00 PM

DEC 25 | 7:00 PM

S SU DEC 26 | 7:00 PM

DEC 27 | 1:00 PM

WEEK AT A GLANCE

BRAINSTORMER’S TRIVIA MUSIC & MOVEMENT THE BOB BURNETT TRIO FEATURING TAMMI BROWN ( GRAMMY NOMINATED)

CLOSED DIMINISHED BLUE WITH CHARLES BRUGNAN

JERRY SAUCIDO TUESDAY MONDAY Brainstormer’s Trivia Music & Movement w/the San Jose Night every Monday @ 7pm in The Garage

Libraries. 4th Tuesday of the month @ 10:30am in the Garage

THURSDAY THUR-SUN Treatbot Karaoke Night- every Thursday @ 7:30pm in Market Hall in front of Treatbot

Live Music ThursdaySaturday at 7pm & Sunday at 1pm

FOR MORE INFO VISIT WWW.SANPEDROSQUAREMARKET.COM

More listings:

metroactive MUSIC

METROACTIVE.COM

Jazz/Blues/ World

AGAVE

AGAVE

Every Fri, 9:30pm: DJ Norman.

San Jose.

AGENDA LOUNGE Every Wed, 8pm: Salsa Wednesdays w/ free dance lessons. Every Thu, 9pm: Banda Night. San Jose. Every Sunday: Hip-hop & reggae.

San Jose.

ART BOUTIKI Sun, Dec 27, 5pm: Black Betty & Mason Rasavi. San Jose.

THE BACK BAR SOFA Every Wed, 9pm: The Cypher, feat. Hip-hop, Jungle, Soul, Reggae, Dubstep, Trap, BreakBeat, House and more.

San Jose

THE CATS Wed, Dec 23, 7pm: Hootenanny. Sat, Dec 26, 8pm: Body Mind, and Soul.

Every Sun, 6pm: Joe Ferrara.

Los Gatos.

DANA STREET COFFEE Every 2nd Mon, 7pm: Ukulele Jam. Mountain View.

MARIANI'S Fri-Sat: Live Music. Santa Clara.

MOJO LOUNGE Most Fri/Sat: Live Music.

Every Sun, 8pm: Acoustic Jam. Every Tue, 8pm: Aki Kumar’s Band. Every Thurs: DJ Mist. Fremont.

NORMANDY HOUSE LOUNGE Every Thu, 9:30pm: DJ night w/ DJ BenOfficial & DJ Vex. Every Fri and Sun, 9:30pm: Karaoke w/ DJ NoWrath.

Santa Clara.

NUMBER ONE BROADWAY

BRITANNIA ARMS DOWNTOWN Every Wed: DJ 512. Every Thu: DJ Nico & Neeber. Every Fri: DJ Benofficial & Clay. Every Sat: DJ Ready Rock. San Jose.

CARDIFF LOUNGE Every Tues, 10pm: Resident DJ Gabriel Black presents Beat Culture. Every Wed, 10pm: Rubber Soul w/ Wen Davis, Nappy, Cutso, and Golden Child (Hip-Hop).

Every Thu, 10pm: Roger Morehouse Presents Foxy Thursdays. Campbell.

CHARLEY'S LG Every Wed, 10pm: Wi3rd Wednesdays. Every Thu, 7pm: Speakeasy Saloon w/live country music. Los Gatos.

Every Tue: Jack Ripoff. Every Wed: Isaiah Pickett Jam. Wed, Dec 23, 8pm: Isaiah Pickett Jam. Sat, Dec 26, 8pm: Joint Chiefs. Los Gatos.

THE QUARTER NOTE Every Mon, Wed & Thu: Pro Jam. Sunnyvale.

THE RITZ Wed, Dec 23, 8pm: Ritchie Dagger’s Crime Time. San Jose.

SAN PEDRO SQUARE MARKET Sat, Dec 26, 7pm: Diminished Blues. Sun, Dec 27, 1pm: Jerry Sauceda. San Jose.

THE X BAR

AGENDA LOUNGE Every Wed, 8pm: Salsa. Every Thu, 9pm: Banda Night. San Jose.

ANGELICA’S BISTRO Every Tue: Jazz Tuesdays.

Redwood City.

BLUE NOTE LOUNGE Every Tue, 7:30pm: Yoshi Senzaki Band. Every Sun: Jazz or Blues. Milpitas.

BLUE ROCK SHOOT Every Fri: Blue Rock Showcase. Every Sat: Live Featured Show. Every Sun: Jazz & Blues Jam. Saratoga.

CAFFE FRASCATI Wed, Dec 23, 8pm: Ben Henderson, Adira Sharkey.

San Jose.

CASCAL Every Fri & Sat: Live Music.

Mountain View.

CLUB FOX Every Wed: Club Fox Blues Jam. Redwood City.

DANA STREET COFFEE Every 2nd Mon, 7pm: Ukulele Jam. Mountain View.

HEDLEY CLUB AT HOTEL DE ANZA Every 1st and 3rd Wed: Jazz Jam. San Jose.

HUKILAU Fri-Sat, 8pm: Hawaiian music.

San Jose.

J.J.’S BLUES Blues and Jazz every night.

Call for info. San Jose.

Every Thu: No Cover night.

Every Sat: Saturday Nite Live Music Show. Cupertino.

LITTLE LOU’S BBQ

WOODHAMS LOUNGE

MOROCCO’S

C&J’S SPORTS BAR Every Thu, 10pm: Karaoke.

Every Fri & Sat: Live Music or DJ. Santa Clara.

Every Thu: Banda La Unica.

Every Fri, 6:30pm: Mariachi Mariachismo. San Jose.

Fri: Live music. Santa Clara.

Wed, Dec 23, 7pm: Scott Goldberg. Sat, Dec 26, 8pm: Jinx Jones and the Kingtones.

Every Sun: Little Lou’s Jazz Jam Band. San Jose.

Every Wed, Fri, and Sat, 5pm: Belly dancing. Every Tue,

40

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Rock/Pop/ Hip-Hop

39

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

40

We Will Be CLOSED from MONDAY 12/21 - WEDNESDAY 12/30 and FRIDAY 1/1

CELEBRATE NEW YEAR’S EVE 2015 with

THE MARCUS

SHELBY QUINTET featuring the Dynamic

M ISS F AYE C AROL performing the music of

Billie Holiday with

Sylvia Cuenca on Drums Joe Warner on Piano James Mahone on Saxophone

8:30PM $20 advance tickets at brownpapertickets.com

374 South First Street | San Jose | cafestritch.com

Jinx Jones

C&W/Folk

39 4pm: Live Jazz Music w/ Johnny Williams. Every Thu: Live Acoustic Guitar Music.

Mountain View.

MOSAIC Fri-Sat, 6-9pm: Jazz for dinner. San Jose.

MURPHY’S LAW Every Tues: Pro Blues Jam. Sunnyvale.

O’FLAHERTY’S Thu, 9pm: Live Music. Sun, 5pm: Reggae music. Tue, 6:30pm: Live Irish Rock. San Jose.

POOR HOUSE BISTRO Every Wed: Blues & Brews w/ Sid Morris & Kyle Jester. Sat, Dec 26, 6pm: Mighty Mike Schermer, Laura Chavez, & Terry Hiatt. Sun, Dec 27, 2pm: Motordude Zydeco. San Jose.

DANA STREET COFFEE Every 2nd Mon, 7pm: Ukulele Jam. Mountain View.

SAM'S BBQ

CHARLEY'S LG

Wed, Dec 23, 6pm: Loganville.

Tue, Dec 29, 6pm: Leftover Crow. San Jose.

Every Thu, 7pm: Speakeasy Saloon w/ live Country music. Every Tue, 7pm: Tuesday Bluesday w/ live Blues music. Los Gatos.

ST. STEPHENS GREEN Every Tue, 7:30pm: Irish music. Fourth Sat, 10pm: South American Hits.

Mountain View.

MISSION PIZZA Sat, Dec 26, 7pm: Beargrass Creek. Fremont.

TRAIL DUST BBQ

ORCHARD VALLEY COFFEE

Fri, 6-9pm: Live blues, roots and Americana. Morgan Hill.

Every Thu: Acoustics Music Nights. Every Fri & Sat: Acoustics/Bands Music Nights. Campbell.

UNWINED Every 2nd and 4th Thu, 7-9pm: Don Balistreri. Every Sat, 7-9:30pm: Live jazz. Every 1st and 3rd Sat, 9pm: Randy Whiting and “@Jazz.” San Jose.

PIONEER SALOON Every Sun: Jam Session.

Every Wed: Marty and

43

11 41

Est. 1994

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Marks Of Art TATTOO Thank You for Voting Us Best of Silicon Valley 2015

Tattoo By Shannon Cullen

Specializing in custom designs, cover-ups, color, and black & gray Friendly, sterile & clean environment Walk-ins welcome 6 artists to choose from Same owner & location for 20+ years FREE $25 gift certificate with every $100 gift cert purchased now through Christmas Eve* 408.377.1924 · 3014 Union Ave, San Jose OPEN 7 DAYS Now hiring professional ssional oo artists & experienced tattoo

Follow us on instagram @MarksOfA @MarksOfArtTattoo

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

10 42

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40

POOR HOUSE BISTRO

Karaoke. Sunnyvale.

43

Annika. Every Thu: Pete Weston. Woodside.

Tue, 6pm: Open mic. San Jose.

QUARTER NOTE

Thu: Karaoke. Los Gatos.

THE SADDLE RACK

Mon: Comedy. No cover.

Sunnyvale.

BRANHAM LOUNGE

RED ROCK COFFEE CO.

Tue: Karaoke with Medik & Sean Blak. San Jose.

Mon, 7pm: Cavin and King’s Open Mic. Mountain View.

BRIT ARMS ALMADEN

ROOSTER T. FEATHERS

Wed and Sun, 10pm: Karaoke w/ DJ Hank. San Jose.

THE WOODSHED Every 1st Sun: Doug Young’s Acoustic Guitar Night. $10.

Los Gatos.

Open Mic/ Comedy

Wed, Dec 23, 8pm: Burbank Comedy Festival Audition Showcase Sat/Sun, Dec 26/27, various: Home for the Holidays. Sunnyvale.

WOODHAMS LOUNGE Mon: Comedy open mic with Pete Munoz. Santa Clara.

WORKS/SAN JOSE ANGELICA’S BISTRO Every Tue: Open Mic Tuesdays.

Redwood City.

7 BAMBOO

2nd Thu, 7pm: Words Drawing Music. San Jose.

Karaoke

BRIT ARMS CUPERTINO Sun-Tue, 10pm: Karaoke.

Cupertino.

THE CARAVAN Mon, 10pm: Mandatory Monday Karaoke. San Jose.

THE CARLOS CLUB Fri & Sat: Karaoke night. San Carlos.

CHARLEY'S LG Tue: Karaoke. Los Gatos.

C&J’S SPORTS BAR

Mon, 7pm: Musical open mic for singer/songwriters. Sign up at 7pm. Free. San Jose.

7 BAMBOO

Thu, 9pm: Karaoke. Santa Clara.

Wed-Sat, 9pm: Karaoke. Tue, 9pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

COURT’S LOUNGE

BLUE ROCK SHOOT

7 STARS BAR & GRILL

Mon, Thu & Sat, 9pm: Karaoke.

Campbell.

Thu, 7pm: Musical open mic.

San Jose.

Fri-Sat, 8pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

DASILVA’S BRONCOS

CAFFE FRASCATI

ALEX’S 49ER INN

Wed: Karaoke. Thu, 9pm-1am: Karaoke. Santa Clara.

Every Mon, 8pm: Commediaopen mic for comedy. Tue, 7pm: Open mic. San Jose.

Nightly, 9pm-2am: Karaoke.

San Jose.

DIVE BAR

CAMERA 3

Every 2nd Thu: Gothic, industrial karaoke. Club Lido, San Jose.

Fri, 9pm, Sat, 7pm and 9:15pm: Comedy Sportz. San Jose.

CARAVAN Every Wed, 9pm: Comedy Caravan.

Wed, 10pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

APPARITION

THE BACK BAR

Wed-Sat & Tue, 9pm-2am, & last Sun of every month, 2-7pm: B&S Karaoke.

Campbell.

Tue thru Sat: Karaoke. San Jose.

EL RANCHO SPORTS BAR Thu, 8pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

THE BEARS

THE CATS

Fri, 9pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

Every Tue: Funny Farm hosted

by Butch Escobar. Los Gatos.

BENNIGAN’S GRILL

CITY ESPRESSO

Sat, 9pm: Karaoke evenings.

Santa Clara.

Wed, Dec 23, 8pm: X-Mas Comedy Bash. Sat/Sun, Dec 26/27, various: DJ Cooch. San Jose.

BLINKY’S CAN’T SAY

LIQUID

Fri, 9pm: Karaoke Friday Nights. Santa Clara.

Wed, 9pm: Poetic Justice Open Mic. San Jose.

BLUE MAX

PHILZ COFFEE Mon, 7pm: Open mic. Free.

San Jose.

Sun, 7pm-close: Uncle Dougie Show. Palo Alto.

Thu, 9pm-2am: August.

Milpitas.

IMPROV

Sun, 9:30pm: Comedy. San Jose.

FIREHOUSE GRILL & BREWERY

GALAXY

Fri, 7pm: Open mic. San Jose.

MARMIST COCKTAIL LOUNGE

EFFIE’S RESTAURANT

GILROY BOWL Thu-Sat, 9:30pm: Karaoke.

Gilroy.

Fri: Karaoke Fridays.

Sunnyvale.

BLUE PHEASANT Tue, 7pm: Karaoke w/ Steve Tiger. Cupertino.

THE GOOSETOWN LOUNGE Fri-Sat, 9:30pm-1:30am: Karaoke. Willow Glen.

BOGART’S LOUNGE Wed, Fri & Sun, 9pm-1am:

44

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Every Wed, 7:30pm: Country Get Down Wednesday. Every Thu, 7:30: Country Music.

Every Fri, 9pm: Country Get Down Friday. Fremont.

BOULEVARD TAVERN

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

CJ Supnet

44

DJ Benofficial

43 THE HUDDLE Wed-Thu and Sun, 9pm: Wild Nights Karaoke. Fremont.

ISLAND CAFE & BAR Fri-Sat, 9pm: Karaoke.

Sunnyvale.

EVERYTHING IN THE STUDIO* *See studio for full details - sale ends 1.16.16

PIERCED OUT

THE OFFICE BAR & GRILL

KYOTO PALACE

Tue, 9pm: Karaoke with TJ The DJ. Sunnyvale.

Wed, 7pm: Karaoke. Campbell.

LILLY MAC’S

O’FLAHERTY’S IRISH PUB Mon, 9pm: Karaoke. San Jose.

Thu: Karaoke. Sunnyvale.

LIQUID

PLAZA GARIBALDI

Tue: Karaoke. San Jose.

Wed & Sun, 7pm-close: Karaoke. San Jose.

Sun: Karaoke for the Industry.

No cover. San Jose.

MARIANI’S

PIONEER SALOON

KATIE BLOOM’S

THE NEW JERSEY’S

JOHNNY V’S

BUY ONE GET ONE 1/2 OFF

Mountain View.

Wed & Sun, 9:30pm-1:30am: Karaoke. Campbell.

KC BAR AND RESTAURANT Wed, 8pm: DJ Desmond. San Jose.

KHARTOUM

Thu, 8pm: Chris. Santa Clara.

Sat: Karaoke. Campbell.

POINCIANA LOUNGE

NORMANDY HOUSE LOUNGE

Wed, 9:30pm: Wildside. No cover. Sun, 9pm: Joe. Santa Clara.

Fri-Sat, 9:30pm: Karaoke.

Santa Clara.

OASIS

Thu, 9pm: DJ Davey K. Campbell.

Wed & Fri-Sat, 8:30pm: Doug.

Sunnyvale.

KING OF CLUBS

OFF THE HOOK

Thu & Sun-Mon, 8:30pm: Bruce of KOR Karaoke.

Tue, 8:30pm: Acoustic karaoke with Sam Marshall. Woodside.

Wed, 9pm: Karaoke. Campbell.

PSYCHO DONUTS Sun, 10am: Psycho Karaoke.

Campbell.

THE QUARTER NOTE Tue: Karaoke. Sunnyvale.

46

11 45 DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Party Club Entertainment presents

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44 RED STAG LOUNGE

metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

Nightly karaoke, 9pm-1:30am.

San Jose.

REDI ROOM Thu-Sat, 9pm: DJ Curtis. San Jose.

ROCKBAR Tue, 7pm: Live Band Karaoke.

San Jose.

SHERWOOD INN Thu-Sun, 8:30pm: Karaoke.

San Jose.

SOUTH FIRST BILLIARDS Sun: Karaoke. San Jose.

STATION 55 Thu: JR. Sun: JR Diaz Family Karaoke. Tue: James. Gilroy.

TEQUILA SHOTS BAR & GRILL Mon & Wed, 9pm: Darryl. Milpitas.

THREE FLAMES RESTAURANT Every Mon, Wed, Sun, 8pm to closing: Karaoke. Every Tue and Thu, 9pm to closing: Karaoke. San Jose.

SAN PEDRO SQUARE MARKET Every Thu, 7:30pm-9:30pm: Karaoke Club. San Jose.

BAMBOO LOUNGE Fri-Sat: DJ or Live Entertainment. San Jose.

Party w/ DJ Howhigh, DJ RQ, DJ Sequence, DJ Christylz.

San Jose.

BLUE PHEASANT

MILANO

Nightly, 7pm: DJ and dancing.

Cupertino.

BRANHAM LOUNGE Wed: Almaden Valley Beer Pong with DJ ONEmanARMY. Thu: Vintage (’80s, ’90s, Pop, Rock, Hip Hop) with DJ David Q. Fri: Quality Control with DJ DLuzion. Sat: Lounge Life with DJ Krucial and DJ NESSrock.

San Jose.

THE MOJO LOUNGE

BRIT ARMS DOWNTOWN

Thu, 10pm: Dancing to DJ BenOfficial & DJ Vex. Santa Clara.

Wed: DJ 512. Thu: DJ Nico & Neeber. Fri: DJ Benofficial. Sat: DJ Ready Rock. San Jose.

CARDIFF LOUNGE Every 2nd and 4th Sun: Return of the Boom Zap, underground electronic music. Campbell.

CHARLEY’S LG Wed: EDM Music. Fri-Sat, 10pm: DJ (follows live music).

Los Gatos.

CREEKSIDE LOUNGE Fri & Sat: Dance Club events.

San Jose.

DIVE BAR Thu-Sat, 10:30pm: Rotating Guest DJs.

EL RANCHO SPORTS BAR Fri-Sat, 8pm: Old School Dance Party. San Jose.

THE ELEGANT PUB Big Fat Year End Kiss Off Comedy Show XXIII

NEW YEAR’S EVE

WILLOW DEN Every Wed at 9:30pm: Karaoke.

Willow Glen.

Includes champagne and interactive balloon drop.

Skits. Sketches. Jokes.

Theatre on San Pedro Square

408.679.2330 w ww.TabardTheat re.org

WOODHAMS LOUNGE Tue-Thu & Sat: Karaoke. Santa Clara.

THE X BAR Every Fri, 9pm: Karaoke w/ KJ Vinnie. Cupertino.

Dance Clubs AGENDA Wed: Salsa Wednesdays. Thu: Shakalosos Banda Nights.

Sun: Reggae Vybez. San Jose.

Call for info. Evergreen Inn, San Jose.

JOHNNY V’S Mon: ReToxx. Tue: Trap Shop.

Wed: Hip-Hop/ Top 40. Thu/ Fri/Sat: 70s, 80s, 90s Funk, House. Sun: Slow Jams, Karoake Dance Party. San Jose.

KATIE BLOOM’S Thu-Sat, 9:30pm: DJs and dancing. Campbell.

MYTH TAVERNA LOUNGE Thu, 9pm: Therapy Thursday.

Fri, 9pm: Soul Therapy. San Jose.

NORMANDY HOUSE LOUNGE

PAGODA LOUNGE Mon, 8:30pm: Vocal DUO. Tue, 9pm: Dueling Grand Pianos.

Wed, 9pm: DUO. Thu, Fri & Sat, 9pm: weekly Jazz and Pop Dance bands. Sun, 7pm: Solo Guitarist with Light Vocals.

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PURE LOUNGE 408 Fri, Dec 25, 10pm: Firebeatz.

Sat, Dec 26, 10pm: DJ Shift.

Sunnyvale.

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Mountain View.

STUDIO8 Sat, Dec 26, 10pm: Night After Christmas Party. San Jose.

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Fri: DJs & dancing. Every 2nd Sat: Girls & Champagne. San Jose.

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

MAKE MY DAY Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell face off in Quentin Tarantino’s latest treatise on senseless savagery.

Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell are a cold-blooded pair of bounty hunters, blizzard-bound in Wyoming territory. They’re stuck in a general store with the new sheriff of Red Rock (Walton Goggins), the cagey son of an infamous Southern bushwacker. Loitering there are suspicious figures: a Mexican steward (Demian Bichir), a silvertongued hangman (Tim Roth) and a sulking Confederate general (Bruce Dern). One of the happiest moments in the film is Dern testily stabbing his own sleeve with his finger, to show a new arrival the stripes of rank that he wears.

Among these rough men is a woman sentenced to hang—the hellcat outlaw Daisy Domergue (Jennifer Jason Leigh)—a snotty, racist little psycho with a black eye and a cuddly-looking fur hat.

The moral, as much as there is one, is that the South and the North still have their differences, but honest The Hateful Eight examination of the same allows R; 168 Mins. both sides to Valleywide come together and engage in some violence against women. Blood and thunder directors like Sergio Leone and Samuel Fuller had some civilization imposed on them by producers or the Production Code. Going full barbarian, QT has made his nastiest, least appealing movie. The deathless Samuel L. Jackson—who deserves to play a larger-than-life hero, as when he goes hat-brim to hat-brim with an adversary on the big wide screen— but he turns out to be just one more talkative bastard.

—Richard von Busack

6PM-8PM

She’s the bullseye on QT’s target, punched until her face is a mask of blood. Dialogue suggests that the true meaning of feminism is that women ought to get it as bad as the men, but Leigh’s slightness leeches all the fun out that. Shouldn’t QT have hired an actress with some meat on her bones? (Where is the Pam Grier of today?)

DAILY $5

Vapid Violence QUENTIN TARANTINO’S Inglourious Basterds was revenge against the Nazis, and his Django Unchained was revenge against the slavers. The Hateful Eight is his revenge against Western movies—a softer target. The snowscapes are mammoth, but not splendid enough to justify this specimen of grindhouse nihilism, blown up to roadshow size and in Ultra Panavision 70 photography.

47

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

By Dr. Raja Toke

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Only patients with legally recognized medical cannabis recommendation AND a valid California ID may obtain cannabis products from Medimarts. Medimarts is a non-porfit collective operating in strict compliance with CA Prop 215 and SB420 H&S 11362.5 &11362.7 All New Patients, Seniors, Vets & Disabled Receive a FREE ½ gram added to a minimum $20 donation or a FREE edible or a FREE pre-rolled joint* *(While Supplies Last, One Offer per Patient per Week, All Rights Reserved)

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State Law vs Federal Law ATTENTION: State governmental entities can NOT create or recreate laws that organizations and individuals simply can’t abide by or follow without blatantly violating a superior law known as the Federal (CSA) Controlled Substance Act! The first thing that everyone MUST know and fully understand is the federal “Supremacy Clause.” The Supremacy Clause is the provision in Article Six, Clause 2 of the United States Constitution. This establishes the Constitution, federal statutes, and treaties as the “supreme law of the land.” It provides that these are the highest form of law in the United States legal system, and mandates that all the state judges MUST follow federal law when a conflict arises between federal law and either a state Constitution or state law of any state.

Question: How can California establish or recreate any state law or amend the state Constitution without violating the "supreme law of the land" known as the federal Controlled Substance Act? Answer: In our opinion...they can’t! As long as federal laws like the CSA, IRS Rule 280E and federal banking laws exist NO state can lawfully legalize something that is federally illegal! The federal governmental entities may NOT prosecute or pursue the states themselves but they’ve recently made it clear that they will go after organizations and individuals.

So….We’ll All Take the Fifth!

The Fifth Amendment’s right against self-incrimination permits an organization or individual to refuse to follow a law or laws that could be used against the organization or individual in a criminal prosecution. This right is to inhibit the government from compelling a confession or illegal activity through force, coercion or deception.

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ADVICE GODDESS

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By AMY ALKON

AdviceAmy@AOL.com

You need “time to yourself”? Great. She can do that. Just call her when you’re ready.

No, not on the phone. She’ll be out on your porch in her sleeping bag.

Welcome to the rose-colored distorto-vision of being “optimistically biased”—succumbing to the human tendency to see what’s positive instead of what’s realistic. (“What I refuse to believe won’t hurt me!”) We’re especially likely to go happily dumb when our ego is involved. Evolutionary biologist Robert Trivers explains in “The Folly of Fools” that we “protect our happiness via self-deception.” We have a “psychological immune system” that works “not by fixing what makes us unhappy but by … minimizing it and lying about it.”

Neuroscientist Tali Sharot finds from her brain imaging research that having a distortedly positive view comes out of what she calls “selective updating.”

When our brain gets information that things are going to be better than expected, it’s all, “Yes, sir, we’ll send that around.” But information that things

will be worse than expected? That gets kicked under the bed.

There is another possibility here. Even if your girlfriend’s intelligence level leaves you confused about whether to take her to dinner or just water her and put her in indirect sunlight, she may be what I call instinctually smart. Possibly, it’s clear to her that you want to end it but she’s ignoring that in hopes of wearing you down. Regardless of the reason she’s still hanging around, the only way to change that is by telling her that you two are done, using very direct language, like, “I’m sorry, but it’s over between us. I am breaking up with you.”

This is actually the kind way to break up with a refuse-to-believe-er—being momentarily cruel, ideally as soon as you realize it’s over. In other words, putting your girlfriend out of her misery starts with putting her through it—pronto. Keep merely hinting that it’s over and, well, if an asteroid destroyed life on earth as we know it, three things would survive: cockroaches, the Kardashians, and your relationship.

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My girlfriend rarely, if ever, calls me by my actual name. Other women I’ve dated have done this, too. It makes me think of that country song that goes, “You don’t have to call me darlin’, darlin’.” I’ve come to realize that I’ve been steadily losing interest in my girlfriend, and maybe she senses that. Or could it be something else?

Why do women do this—not calling men by their actual names?—Nameless There are times when only your actual name will do—because the alternative is “Hey, Magic Penis, I’m over here … aisle 4!”

But, generally speaking, the way people address each other is a statement about the kind of relationship they have. So when the nurse comes into the waiting room with a clipboard, you never hear, “Okay, Poopooface, the doctor will see you now.” A cop, likewise, will not ask, “Do you know how fast you were going, Turtlebutt?”

A pet name is part of creating a relationship “culture”—things you do and say that mark the relationship as a distinct little society. (Cutesy handles also tend to travel better than matching bones through the

nose.) Not surprisingly, relationship communication researcher Carol Bruess finds that partners in happy relationships use nicknames more than those in unhappy ones. Referencing previous research, Bruess explains that nickname use both creates intimacy and reflects it. So, it’s possible that your girlfriend’s nicknamery is a ploy—perhaps unconscious—to bring you two closer.

But seeing as you have been “steadily losing interest” in your girlfriend, why are you sitting around pondering nickname use? You need to do your part: Inform your girlfriend that the relationshippypoo can no longer breathe on its owniecakes, and that it’s time she started referring to you as her ex-schmoopie—or, better yet, “that asshole” she used to date.

©2015, Amy Alkon, all rights reserved. Got a problem? Write Amy Alkon, 550 S. First St., San Jose, CA 95113, or email adviceamy@aol.com.

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I’m a 43-year-old man, and I’m trying to build my career after years of being a stay-at-home dad. I got involved very quickly with a woman I met online, but the truth is that she’s just not smart enough for me. I feel bad because she’s very sweet, but I’d rather devote my time to my work. I’ve tried to break up with her numerous times, but she just doesn’t seem to get it. I’ll tell her I really need time to myself, but she’ll still call incessantly. How do you tell somebody it’s over in a way that is kind but gets through to them?—I’m Done

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JOBS Sr Quality Assurance Engg @ Barnes & Noble College Booksellers LLC (Mountain View, CA) F/T. Gathr & anly test reqs basd on biz reqs. Dvlp, implmnt & excute test plan/test cases in Agile SDLC envirmt. Estimte QA wrk involvd on projcts. Dvlp Test Scripts fr automation & prep Test Reprts. Req Master’s or foreign equiv in Sftwr Engg, Engg (any) or rltd fld & 5 yrs of exp as QA Engg, Tech Ld, or rltd. Will accept Bach, or foreign equiv, & 7 yrs of progressively resp exp. Reqs 5 yrs of exp w/t Master’s or 7 yrs w/t Bach w/t: test case writing, execution, & documentation, automatin, test planning, test reportg & failure debuggng, Test automatin exp w/t Ruby Python, Perl, TCL/TK Expect or Java Script, Selenium, working in Unix/Linux environts & exp w/t Shell Scripts. Also reqs exp w/t: relational dbs (PL/SQL, or PostgreSQL); writing & execut complex SQL commands; automating testng using common Ruby on Rails framwrks (Cucumber, Capybara, Poltergeist, or RSpec); defect-tracking syst to reprt, track & reslve defects; wrking w/t web apps & front-end techs (HTML, CSS, JavaScript, Bootstrap, XPATH or CSS); testng REST APIs or Web Services using POSTMAN & Rested clients; Agile SDLC methodology, Continuous Integrtin & Continuous Deployment; Web ecommerce & PCI compliance; working w/t Test Driven Dvlpmt & Behavior Driven Dvlpmt & assoc tools; & SVN & Perforce SCM systms. Will accept any suit comb of edu, training or exp. Mail resume to Mike Boyadjian, 365 Ravendale Dr, Mountain View, CA 94043. Ref. Job title.

Microchip Technology seeks Sr. Firmware Engineer (SFECA) in San Jose, CA. Design & implement firmware for Bluetooth prod. Master’s+1yr exp. Email resume to #AllSiliconValleyHR@Microchip. com. Reference job title & code in subject line.

Principal Engineering Project Mngr (Santa Clara, CA) Manage IT projs in supprt of SaaS Ops teams. Dvlp proj mgmnt processes, dvlp detailed work plans, identify resources & devlp IT project checklists. Provide guidance to project teams. REQS: Bach deg or for equiv in Comp Sci, Math, Engg (any) or rel + 5 yrs prog exp in job &/or rel occup. Must have exp w/ SaaS tech incl data center ops; Assisting with SSAE-16, SOC-2, & PCI standards compliance activities; Dvlpng proj mgmnt processes; Coord roles & responsibilities of engg, ops, compliance, info secur, data center, database & networking teams; Tech knwldge of SaaS infrastructure incl physcl servers, virtual mach servers, OS, & Oracle & SQL databases; Disaster Recover & High Availability implmntn; Implmntng new SaaS svcs in data centers; Disaster Recovery progs; Work from home available 15% of the time; Send resume to: Althea Wilson, CA Technologies, One CA Plaza, Islandia, NY 11749, Refer to Requisition # 118842.

TRUCK DRIVERS NEEDED Super dump/transfer, end dump, 10 wheeler, and water truck drivers for local construction material hauling. All work is daily some nights and weekends on occasion no long haul, you will be home with your family daily. Must have clean DMV, Class A or B lic. read, write and speak fluent English as well as pass pre employment and random drug screening. Compensation is competitive and based on experience and performance. Please apply at:1217 Dell Ave., Campbell CA 95008Between 10 am and 3 pm. Mon - Fri. 408-9714430 for immediate interview.

Sr. Technical Architect (STA-HP) Dsgn effective solution on top salesforce for existing & new functionalities to meet biz needs & solve complex biz issues by articulating reqs. MS+3 yrs or BS+6 yrs prog rltd exp. Send resumes to Intuitive Surgical, Attn: Rebecca Counihan, 1020 Kifer Road, Sunnyvale, CA 94086.

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sought by Mirantis, Inc. in Sunnyvale, CA. Req a BS in CS, Engg or rltd fld + 3 yrs exp. Exp: in cloud coptng dmns IaaS & PaaS spce; in infrstctre, Ntwrkng, or Data Cntr Mgmt; in Linx & virtalztion pdatic to dtails & to trck prjct excutn; w/ dvlp mthodlges.

Emplr wl accept edunl eqivlcy evaltion prprd by qual eva serv or in accdnce w/ 8 CFR § 214.2(h)(4)(iii) (D). Perm US wrk auth. Aply @ www. jobpostingtoday.com # 79231

Software/Programmer SW DEVELOPER - 8x8, Inc. seeks Sr. Java Developers (multiple openings) to apply expertise of web service & high volume transaction management to build mission critical Cloud-based web services & business software applications (1234). Also, seeks Java Web Developer to design, develop & implement software applications to enable virtual office plug-ins for SalesForce, Sugar CRM, & other critical business production systems (2125). Mail resume to HR @ worksite: 2125 O’Nel Dr., San Jose, CA 95131 & ref. job code.

Principal Sftwre Engineer (Santa Clara, CA) Define & implmnt SSDLC strategies. Coordinate secure coding & tstng efforts to audit & test apps for secur vulnerabilities. Anlyze & implmnt steps to mitigate issues reprted by various testing tools. Dvlp stndrds for secure coding best prctices and def and implmnt sftwr secur strategies. REQS: Bach deg or for equiv in Comp Sci, Math, Engg (any) or rel + 5 yrs prog exp in job &/or rel occup. Must have exp w/ Threat Modeling, static code analysis & penetration tsting; Tsting Tools HP Fortify SCA/SSC, HP WebInspect, IBM Rational AppScan and BurpSuite Pro; Teaching secure coding in Java and C/C++ to dvlprs; Teaching secur awareness/SSDLC to dvlpmnt & sr prod mgmnt; Conductng SSDLC /Secur briefings; Def & implmnt sftwr secur strategies; Asstng dvlpmnt team w/ issues rel to dvlpmnt & coding in Java, C/C++, Python, T-SQL; Communicating & coord secure coding & tsting effrts across mult teams in a glbl org; Agile Methodologies, Scaled Agile Frmwrk; BSIMM Frmwrk.

Send resume to: Althea Wilson, CA Technologies, One CA Plaza, Islandia, NY 11749, Refer to Requisition #118841.

Engineering. Various levels of experience.

LSI Corporation, an Avago Technologies company, a semiconductor company, has openings in San Jose, CA for R&D IC Design Engineer, Staff (DE07): Provide IP development and frontend support for Avago’s Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC) customers; R&D Engineer Software (SW01): Design and develop Linux and VMWare OS device drivers for MegaRAID storage controllers; and R&D Engineer IC Design (ASIC Customer Engineer Staff ) (DE08): Responsible for block and top level physical implementation. If interested, must reference job code and send resume via U.S. mail to: LSI, Attn: HR (GS), 1320 Ridder Park Drive, San Jose, CA 95131.

TECHNOLOGY

Security Identity Management, Manager (Mult. Pos.) PricewaterhouseCoopers Advisory Services LLC, San Jose, CA. Provide technology and risk consulting services. Req. Bach.’s deg. or foreign equiv. in Comp. Info. Systems, Comp. Sci., IT, MIS, or related, plus 5 yrs. of post-bach.'s, progressive rel. work exp.; OR Master’s deg. or foreign equiv. in Comp. Info. Systems, Comp. Sci., IT, MIS, or related, plus 3 yrs. of rel. work exp.

Travel required up to 80%.

Apply by mail, referencing Job Code SANSIM, Attn: HR SSC/Talent Management, 4040 West Boy Scout Boulevard, Tampa, FL, 33607.

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

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ASIC Design Verification Engineers ASIC Design Verification Engineers III (Ref #102, 103, 107, 108, 109); ASIC Physical Design Engineers III (Ref #104, 105, 106); Computer Systems Engineers II (Ref#110); Business Analysts (Systems Analyst (Ref #111) Multiple positions available. Detailed job description at www.smartplayin. com. Job Site: San Jose, CA. Job may require working from employer’s branches located in San Diego, CA and Austin, TX and/or various unanticipated locations throughout the United States. Travel required only to the extent of relocating to employer’s branches located in San Diego, CA and Austin, TX and/or various unanticipated locations throughout the United States. Send resumes referencing job title & reference number to SmartPlay, Inc., 2580 North First Street, Suite 480, San Jose, CA 95131.

LitePoint Corporation seeks talents in Sunnyvale CA: Sr. System Software Engineer: develop wireless test solutions with chipset partners; Sr. Software Engineer: develop software interface with cellular wireless signaling tester; RF Application Engineer: develop wireless test methodologies to support customers’ test systems; Software Test Engineer: minimize manual testing by identifying high-ROI test cases and automation; RF System Validation Engineer: create test plans to validate the tester HW/FW and RF test software; visit www.litepoint. com for details. Reply: Job Code, 965 W. Maude Ave. Sunnyvale CA 94085

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Keysight Technologies, Inc. has an IT Architect (Job Code: ITAAB-CA) position available in Santa Clara, CA. Technology lead for Business Intelligence, analytics and Data integration solutions being part of Technology center of excellence.

Submit resume by mail to: Keysight Technologies c/o Cielo Talent, 200 South Executive Drive, Suite 400, Brookfield, WI 53005. Must reference job title and job code ITAAB-CA.

Synaptics, Inc. looks for Design Engineer in San Jose to design/improve the biometric sensing methodology. Details on www. synaptics.com. Reply with Job Code to 1251 McKay Drive, San Jose, CA 95131

By CECIL ADAMS CECIL@METRONEWS.COM

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Why is running with scissors considered so dangerous that moms everywhere chastise their kids for doing it? It seems to me like a pretty oblique way to hurt yourself. Shouldn’t they be telling clumsy kids to tie their shoelaces and sheathe their machetes instead? Are there any actual reports of people falling on scissors? —Tyler As a rule of thumb, Tyler, for any question of the form “Has anyone ever managed to sustain a significant head injury while [insert name of activity]?” the answer is almost always yes.

So, running with scissors: sure, suitably cautionary real-life tales are out there. A quick search soon turns up the recent case of a scissorswielding three-year-old Australian boy who tripped and fell while running, thereby introducing the blades into his frontal lobe via the left eye socket.

(He, pulled through OK.) One small latter-day Phineas Gage isn’t much of a sample size, admittedly. We therefore turn to the data. The National Electronic Injury Surveillance System (NEISS), a project of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, estimates consumerproduct-related injuries by sampling emergency visits to hospitals across the country; in other words, it won’t give us a comprehensive report of all such incidents, but rather a snapshot of what they look like as reported by NEISS-sampled hospitals and thus a decent idea of the rate at which they occur in the larger population.

For 2014, my assistant Fierra found 678 NEISS injury records in which scissors factored somehow. Mind you, these include stabbings with scissors, suicides with scissors—even, in theory, walking with scissors. Refining her search to cases where the injured party was rapidly on the move, Fierra found exactly three instances last year: • A 23-year-old man fell while running with scissors, lacerating his forearm.

• A two-year-old girl fell while running with scissors, lacerating her face.

• Running outdoors, a ten-year-old boy fell on a pair of gardening scissors, injuring his elbow. (This one’s an uneasy fit, I think; the gardener’s at least as culpable as the boy.)

On average, between 2009 and 2014, NEISS collected 3.6 reports per year involving RWS injuries. Of these, 14 befell children under the age of 17; two of four incidents involving people 17 and up had something to do with alcohol. Extrapolating, we can estimate the average number of RWS incidents

in the U.S. over the past five years as 131 annually. No fatalities were located.

Broadening our inquiry, we find a clear pattern—no matter what activity the victim was engaged in (locomotor or otherwise, at high speed or low), the eye was definitely at particular risk: • A study conducted at a hospital in Verona, Italy, found that scissors were the most common cause of eye injury—13 percent—for children under the age of six.

• In Turkey and Canada both, research suggests that scissors are responsible for around a tenth of all eye injuries.

• Statistics from a hospital in Taiwan implicated scissors in nearly 14 percent of eye injuries.

They seem to be doing a little better in Qatar, where five years’ worth of records from one hospital suggest that their national rate of pediatric eye injuries from scissors is only about 3 percent— tied for prevalence with palm trees. As I say, people will ably hurt themselves with whatever’s at hand: Fierra also, for example, dug up a rather gruesome case study out of Japan about a four-year-old boy who suffered a penetrating head injury (again, via the eye socket) after falling on a wooden chopstick.

Maybe it’s just the season, but to my mind the question that logically follows from this one is, with respect to the classic film A Christmas Story: Can you really shoot your eye out with a BB gun, Red Ryder or otherwise? Well, you can certainly shoot out somebody else’s. Back in the early 1990s, the CDC was reporting about 30,000 incidents a year of eye trauma by way of BB or pellet guns. Twenty years later, the technology’s evolved but the threat remains: rates of eye injury from newly popular “airsoft” guns (convincinglooking replicas that fire spherical plastic bullets) grew 500 percent from 2010 to 2012, according to a study from Stanford School of Medicine; in 2012 alone, more than 3,000 kids were treated in emergency rooms for eye injuries related to airsoft guns.

I haven’t been able to find anything on toy gun injuries that were accidentally self-inflicted, as in the movie. It’s safe to say that most of the danger comes from others. Well, happy holidays!

Delivery Route Sales

Job Location: San Jose, CA. Requirements: MS or equiv. in CS, EE, Telecomm, etc. (or BS + 5 yrs exp.) reqd.

Exp. w/ Windows/Android OS, TCP/IP, Automation/Bluetooth Testing, PTS, WLAN, QPST, Wireshark, Bugzilla & JIRA reqd. Contact: Res: RYZEN Solutions Attn: HR Dept.

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Prime Selection is now hiring motivated individuals for delivery route sales. Fluent english, DL required. (408) 280-6971

TECHNICAL Applied Materials, Inc. is accepting resumes for the following positions in Santa Clara/Sunnyvale, CA: Process Engineer (SCAMO): Develops new or modified process formulations, defines process or handling equipment requirements and specifications, reviews process techniques and methods applied in the fabrication of integrated circuits. Please mail resumes with reference number to Applied Materials, Inc., 3225 Oakmead Village Drive, M/S 1212, Santa Clara, CA 95054. No phone calls please. Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship. EOE. www. appliedmaterials.com

Technology HP Inc. is accepting resumes for the position of Technology Consultantin Sunnyvale, CA (Ref. #HPSUNTC1).

Provide technology consulting tocustomers and internal project teams. Provide technical support and/orleadership in creation and delivery of technology solutions designedto meet customers’ business needs and, consequently, for understandingcustomers’ businesses.

Mail resume to HP Inc., c/o Andrew Bergoine,11445 Compaq Center Drive W. Houston, TX 77070. Resume must includeRef. #, full name, email address & mailing address. No phone calls.Must be legally authorized to work in U.S. without sponsorship. EOE.

BUSINESS Cisco Systems, Inc. is accepting resumes for the following positions in San Jose/Milpitas/Santa Clara, CA: Customer Solution Manager, Marketing (Ref.# SJ261): Create analytics offers for prioritized Solutions.

Gather requirements for IoT/Solution Analytics and then assemble a Solution to address the requirements. Please mail resumes with reference number to Cisco Systems, Inc., Attn: M51H, 170 W. Tasman Drive, Mail Stop: SJC 5/1/4, San Jose, CA 95134. No phone calls please.

Must be legally authorized to work in the U.S. without sponsorship. EOE. www.cisco.com

OpsDynamics, Inc. seeks Computer Systems Analysts.

Test, maintn, install, & integrate systms using Oracle SOA, Oracle B2B, and Oracle Service Bus; Implement data transformatn using XML technologies; Run database queries & procedures for integrating s/ware systms using Oracle Database & Locate & correct code issues uncovered during acceptance testing of s/ware programs. This position may require travel and/or relocation to various unanticipated client locations throughout the USA. Job Site: Sunnyvale, CA & various unanticipated client locations throughout USA. Resume to HR, OpsDynamics, Inc., 1309 S. Mary Avenue, Suite 208, Sunnyvale, CA 94087. Job details: www.opsdynamics.com

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LEGAL & PUBLIC NOTICES FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611749 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Maxxed Out Music, 134 S. 20th St., San Jose, CA, 95116, Maxx Cabello. This business is conducted by a individual.Registrant began transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on 12/7/15.

Refile of previous file #432524 after 40 days of expiration date/s/Maxx Cabello Jr.This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/07/2015.(pub Metro 12/09, 12/16, 12/23, 12/30/2015)

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DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

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metroactive.com | sanjose.com | metrosiliconvalley.com | DECEMBER 23-29, 2015

62

STATEMENT OF ABANDONMENT OF USE OF FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME #611892 The following person(s) / entity (ies) has / have abandoned the use of the fictitious business name(s): Cuu Long Spa, 1310 Tully Road, Suite 105, San Jose, CA, 95122, Huyen Tran, 2600 Senter Road, #142, San Jose, CA, 95111, Fang Hsui Piazza, 304 W. Abbey, Mountain House, CA, 95391. Filed in Santa Clara County on 8/18/2015 under file #608212This business was conducted by an general partnership/s/Huyen TranThis statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/09/2015.(pub Metro 12/16, 12/23, 12/30, 1/06/2016)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611067 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: D-Tek Manufacturing, 3245 Woodward Ave., Santa Clara, CA, 95054, .

This business is conducted by a corporation.

Above entity was formed in the state of CaliforniaRegistrant began transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on 4/24/2006. refile of previous flie #547784 with changes/s/Thanh Lan DangSecretary#C3270608This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 11/12/2015.(pub Metro 12/09, 12/16, 12/23, 12/30/2015)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611520 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Dong Vi Spa, 1310 Tully Rd., #105, San Jose, CA, 95122, Ha Nguyen, 458 Archove Ct., San Jose, CA, 95111, Huyen Tran, 2800 Senter Rd., #142, San Jose, CA, 95111.

This business is conducted by an general partnership.Registrant has not yet begun transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on. /s/Huyen TranThis statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 11/25/2015.(pub Metro 9/16, 9/23, 9/30, 1/06/2016)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #612109 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Il Pastaio, 1266 E Julian St., San Jose, CA, 95116, Sam Moeini, 2860 Creston Rd., Walnut Creek, CA, 94597. This business is conducted by an individual. Registrant has not yet begun business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. /s/Sam Moeini This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/16/2015. (pub Metro 12/23, 12/30, 1/06, 1/13/2016)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611190 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Sedo Appliance, 5201 Terner Way., #201, San Jose, CA, 95136, Sarkis Sedo Hessar. This business is conducted by a

individual.Registrant began transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein on 11/17/2015. /s/ Sarkis Sedo HessarThis statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 11/17/2015.(pub Metro 12/09, 12/16, 12/23, 12/30/2015)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611965 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: A-Able Locksmiths, 103 S. King Road, San Jose, CA, 95116, Paul Nhut Minh Nguyen. This business is conducted by an indivdual.Registrant began transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein 1965. Refile of previous file #538914 with changes/s/Paul Nhut Minh NguyenThis statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/10/2015.(pub Metro 12/16, 12/23, 12/30, 1/06/2016)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611962 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Lock World, 103 S. King Road, San Jose, CA, 95116, Paul Nhut Minh Nguyen.

This business is conducted by an indivdual.

Registrant has not yet begun business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. /s/Paul Nhut Minh Nguyen This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/10/2015. (pub Metro 12/16, 12/23, 12/30, 1/06/2016)

FREE WILL ASTROLOGY

It recently came to our attention that the Astrology column has run a week ahead for several weeks. We are back on schedule and sincerely regret the error.—Editor

ARIES (March 21-April 19): The raw materials you have at your disposal in 2016 may sometimes seem limited. You might not have access to all the tools you wish you did. You could be tempted to feel envy about the vaster resources other people can draw on. But I honestly don't think these apparent inhibitions will put you at a disadvantage. Within your smaller range of options, there will be all the possibilities you need.

In fact, the constraints could stimulate your creativity in ways that would have never occurred if you'd had more options.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20): You know what physical hygiene is. But are you familiar with imaginal hygiene? Educator Morgan Brent defines it like this: “Imaginal hygiene is the inner art of self-managing the imagination, to defend it from forces that compromise, pollute, colonize, shrink, and sterilize it, and to cultivate those that illuminate, expand, and nourish it.” It's always important for everyone to attend to this work, but it's especially crucial for you to focus on it in 2016. You will be exceptionally creative, and therefore likely to generate long-lasting effects and influences out of the raw materials that occupy your imagination.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20): Your mind sometimes works too hard and fast for your own good. But mostly it's your best asset. Your versatility can sometimes be a curse, too, but far more often it's a blessing.

Your agile tongue and flexible agenda generate more fun than trouble, and so do your smooth maneuvers and skillful gamesmanship. As wonderful as all these qualities can be, however, I suggest that you work on expanding your scope in 2016. In my astrological opinion, it will be a good time for you to study and embody the magic that the water signs possess.

What would that mean exactly? Start this way: Give greater respect to your feelings. Tune in to them more, encourage them to deepen, and figure out how to trust them as sources of wisdom.

CANCER (June 21-July 22): Swedish movie director FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #612038 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Forian Photography, 1418 Vinci Park Way, Toan Nguyen. This business is conducted by an indivdual. Registrant has not yet begun transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein. /s/Paul Toan NguyenThis statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/14/2015. (pub Metro 12/16, 12/23, 12/30, 1/06/2016)

FICTITIOUS BUSINESS NAME STATEMENT #611867 The following person(s) is (are) doing business as: Franco Tree Service Inc., 17975 Monterey Rd., Spc 50, Morgan Hill, CA, 95037.

This business is conducted by a corporation.

Above entity was formed in the state of CaliforniaRegistrant began transacting business under the fictitious business name or names listed herein 9/6/2008.

Refile of previous file #599214 afer 40 days of expiration date due to publication requirement not met on previous filing/s/ Maria FrancoCEO#C3734328This statement was filed with the County Clerk of Santa Clara County on 12/09/2015.(pub Metro 12/16, 12/23, 12/30, 1/06/2015)

By ROB BREZSNY week of December 23

Ingmar Bergman won three Academy Awards and was nominated for eight others. Numerous filmmakers have cited him as an important influence on their work. His practical success was rooted in his devotion to the imagination. “I am living permanently in my dream, from which I make brief forays into reality,” he said. Can you guess his astrological sign? Cancer the Crab, of course! No other tribe is better suited at moving back and forth between the two worlds. At least potentially, you are virtuosos at interweaving fantasy with earthy concerns. The coming year will afford you unprecedented opportunities to further develop and use this skill.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22): Avoid pain and pursue pleasure. Be kind, not cruel. Abstain from self-pity and ask for the help you need. Instead of complaining, express gratitude. Dodge time-wasting activities and do things that are meaningful to you. Shun people who disrespect you and seek the company of those who enjoy you. Don't expose yourself to sickening, violent entertainment; fill your imagination with uplifting stories. Does the advice I'm offering in this horoscope seem overly simple and obvious? That's no accident. In my opinion, what you need most in 2016 is to refresh your relationship with fundamental principles.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22): Many of the atoms that compose your flesh and blood were not part of your body 12 months ago. That's because every year, 98 percent of you is replaced. Old cells are constantly dying, giving way to new cells that are made from the air, food, and water you ingest. This is true about everyone, of course. You're not the only one whose physical form is regularly recycled. But here's what will be unique about you in 2016: Your soul will match your body's rapid transformations. In fact, the turnover is already underway. By your next birthday, you may be so new you'll barely recognize yourself. I urge you to take full charge of this opportunity! Who do you want to become?

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22): The English word “ain't” can mean “am not,” “is not,” “are not,” or “have not.”

But it ain't recognized as a standard word in the language. If you use it, you risk being thought vulgar

and uneducated. And yet “ain't” has been around since 1706, more than 300 years. Most words that are used for so long eventually become official. I see your journey in 2016 as having resemblances to the saga of “ain't,” Libra. You will meet resistance as you seek greater acceptance of some nonstandard but regular part of your life. Here's the good news: Your chances of ultimately succeeding are much better than ain't's.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21): My old friend John owns a 520-acre farm in Oregon's Willamette Valley.

Blueberries are among the crops he grows. If he arranges their growing season so that they ripen in July, he can sell them for $1.75 a pint. But if he designs them to be ready for harvest in late summer and early fall, the price he gets may go up to $4 a pint. You can guess which schedule he prefers. I urge you to employ a similar strategy as you plot your game plan for 2016, Scorpio. Timing may not be everything, but it will count for a lot.

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21): In 1803, the U.S. government bought a huge chunk of North American land from the French government. At a price of three cents per acre, the new republic doubled its size, acquiring what's now Louisiana and Montana and everything between. I don't think you'll add that much to your domain in 2016, Sagittarius, but it's likely you will expand significantly. And although your new resources won't be as cheap as the 1803 bargain, I suspect the cost, both in terms of actual cash and in emotional energy, will be manageable. There's one way your acquisition will be better than that earlier one. The Americans bought and the French sold land they didn't actually own—it belonged to the native people—whereas your moves will have full integrity.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19): The coming year will be a favorable time for you to nourish a deeper devotion to truth, beauty, and goodness. Anything you do to make your morality more rigorous will generate benefits that ripple through your life for years to come.

Curiously, you can add to the propitious effect by also cultivating a deeper devotion to fun, play, and pleasure.

There is a symbiotic connection between the part of you that wants to make the world a better place and the part of you that thrives on joy, freedom, and wonder. Here's the magic formula: Feed your lust for life by being intensely compassionate, and vice versa.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18): I predict that 2016 will be your Year of Fruitful Obsessions. In giving this positive spin to the cosmic tendencies, I'm hoping to steer you away from any behavior that might lead to 2016 being your Year of Fruitless Obsessions. One way or another, I think you'll be driven to express your passions with single-minded intensity. Focused devotion—sometimes verging on compulsive preoccupation—is likely to be one of your signature qualities. That's why it's so important to avoid wasteful infatuations and confounding manias. Please choose fascinations that are really good for you.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20): Your symbol of power in 2016 will be the equal sign: =. Visualize it in your mind's eye every morning for 20 seconds. Tattoo it on your butt. Write it on an index card that you keep under your pillow or on your bathroom mirror. Gestures like these will deliver highly relevant messages to your subconscious mind, like “Create balance and cultivate harmony!” and “Coordinate opposing forces!” and “Wherever there is tension between two extremes, convert the tension into vital energy!” Here are your words of power in 2016: “symbiosis” and “synergy.”

Homework: Send me predictions for your life in 2016. Where are you headed? Go to RealAstrology.com; click on “Email Rob.” Go to REALASTROLOGY.COM to check out Rob Brezsny’s Expanded Weekly Audio Horoscopes and Daily Text Message Horoscopes. Audio horoscopes are also available by phone at 1-877-873-4888 or 1-900-950-7700

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Greg Ramar

DECEMBER 23-29, 2015 | metrosiliconvalley.com | sanjose.com | metroactive.com

Greg Ramar

Christmas comes but once a year. It’s the ideal time to get drunk in the ugly sweater that grandma knit for you.

Ewoks, wookies, jedi and sith lined up at theaters all over the South Bay to catch midnight screenings of ‘Star Wars: The Force Awakens.’

Nick Veronin

Greg Ramar

Wacky and wild Christmas-themed atire was everywhere at The Ritz during the Limousines’ sixth-annual XXX-Mas F*ckfest.

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A trio of terrible tops. These three enjoyed themselves during Campbell’s Ugly Holiday Sweater Pub Crawl.

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